


Genius Does What It Must

by smrt1



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-12-27
Updated: 2010-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-14 03:43:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smrt1/pseuds/smrt1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Growing up, Harry Potter became a smartass. Now he's starting Hogwarts, with trusty sidekick Millicent Bulstrode, a question for everything, and a cheerfully sarcastic demeanor that makes everyone want to smack him.</p><p>And apparently there's death lurking in the third floor corridor. That's gonna end well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. If at first you don't succeed... you probably suck.

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley were perfectly normal, thank you very much. Their house was kept perfectly, they doted on their son, and Mr. Dursley had a perfectly normal job selling drills. The only mar was their orphaned nephew, Harry Potter.

Because Harry Potter was not a normal boy. Oh no. He was smart – very, very smart. Or, at the very least, slightly above average with nothing to do with all of his free time except chores and reading. And thinking – he thought a _lot_. About a good many things; his mind would start listing the reasons he detested the Dursleys, his only living relatives, and then it would be off, hopping from topic to topic. When he was young, he thought about topics that Vernon and Petunia mentioned at the dinner table; as he grew older, and started school, the topics had no end, fueled not just by school but by _books_.

By the time he was eight, he had worked his way through most of the school library, and had started again, re-reading for the hidden truths rather than the surface knowledge. He taught himself French, and then learned different ways of writing, and combined them into his own language, so he could write down his thoughts and not fear that anyone else could read them.

When he was nine, he perfected what he called 'Harry Dursley' – an obedient, rather naïve and stupid boy, who hated and feared anything 'unnatural'. It was a good identity, because it convinced his relatives that their twisted plan had worked; that he was now just a normal boy, forever indebted to them for their defeat of his freakishness.

He moved into Dudley's second bedroom under this new persona – he still did the bulk of the chores, but for once he wasn't punished if he didn't complete them all in time. Instead he got disappointed looks, and he pretended to be so wrecked by that disappointment that his aunt and uncle thought it had worked; and he got normal amounts of food and clothes that fit, so when he stopped at the library the adults stopped thinking he was a street kid who was going to curl up in the corner of the bathroom and wait out the winter.

At ten, Harry made his first 'friend'. Dudley still enjoyed gathering his friends for a game of Harry-hunting, but since Harry had turned into a proper Dursley (and got far worse grades than Dudley), he'd stepped off the intimidation keeping classmates away from Harry.

Harry, by this point, was well used to not having friends, and didn't particularly want to _be_ friends with the kind of person who liked Harry Dursley. So he had friends for the sake of appearance, and for something else to do, and occasionally refrained from bashing his head into a wall repeatedly.

When he turned eleven, Harry got a letter.

* * *

He didn't completely believe the words written on the rough parchment, but Harry had raised himself on storybooks and fairy tales, so it was impossible to silence the small but persistent voice piping up, "What if?"

So he wrote a response, and handed it back to the owl that had found him at the park.

 _To Whom It May Concern:_ (He'd seen letters in books written like that, and thought it looked rather professional.)

 _I would appreciate further proof that the incredible claims you make are, in fact, true. And should they prove real, I would like to know why I should be schooled at your institution rather than seeking alternative education._

 _Sincerely,_

 _H.J. Potter_

 _PS: Why owls? Everything I've read says that owls aren't particularly intelligent birds; ravens would have been a far better choice._

* * *

When Headmaster Albus Dumbledore finished reading the response of one Harry James Potter, there was a certain amount of stunned (or at least surprised) silence in the Headmaster's office.

The Headmaster, of course, was twinkling away, not the least because it was always amusing to find a preteen who knew what a semicolon was. His deputy, Professor McGonagall, had latched upon the fact that Harry didn't believe in the magical world – she'd known leaving him with those Muggles was a bad idea.

Professor Flitwick, who taught Charms, was mentally rubbing his hands together evilly. This level of vocabulary surely spoke of a higher intellect and love of learning! The Boy Who Lived being a Ravenclaw would finally get his house the recognition it deserved.

Professor Sprout, who taught Herbology and was head of Hufflepuff house, had acknowledged the response, been rather surprised by the phrasing (wondering whether or not an adult had helped him phrase it), and then gone back to sipping her tea.

And the final member of the cabal, Professor Severus Snape, Potions master, immediately started sneering as soon as the Headmaster mentioned who this response was from. His sneer and distaste just increased as the letter was read – just as he'd thought, the Potter boy was as arrogant as James Potter had always been. And if he'd also inherited his mother's intellect, well, so much the worse. There was nothing worse than a know-it-all who knew it.

"Severus, dear boy, I have a task for you," Headmaster Dumbledore stated, eyes twinkling like the night sky (Snape further sneered at that analogy).

"No," he snapped instantly, because he _knew_ what the Headmaster wanted. And there was no way he would ever do it.

Except, a few arguments and attacks of eye-twinkles later, he was.

* * *

It had been a week since the Owl Incident (Harry blamed the numerous dramatic fantasy books he'd read for the mental titling and capitalizing of certain events in his life), and life continued as normal. His Harry Dursley personality had finished his breakfast and was cleaning the living room while the rest of his 'family' finished, so he could wash the dishes.

There was a knock at the door – which was strange, everyone used the doorbell these days, it was far easier to hear – and Harry quickly called out, "I'll get the door, Uncle Vernon!" before setting the duster down and crossing to open the door.

It was a man. In a dress. Well, a robe, but Harry Dursley wouldn't realize that. And this wouldn't do, wouldn't do at all! A Dursley wouldn't be a fan of drag, Aunt Petunia didn't even like to watch such things on the telly. So he was sure to place a childish sneer on his face while looking the man up and down, and then asked "Yes?" in a tone bordering on completely, out-right rude.

The look he got back was a thing of beauty, and Harry took a few quick mental notes on how to sneer effectively, should he ever need them. (He couldn't use them as Harry Dursley, because he was far too immature and stupid.)

"Where are your guardians?" the man snapped at him, his own tone bordering on complete loathing. The words and the tone gave Harry a few key pieces of information: first, the man knew his parents were dead – no one ever thought of saying 'guardians' instead of 'parents'; second, as he'd never seen him before and he made sure not to be known very well, it was likely that the man had known Harry's parents – and hadn't liked them; and finally, he was underestimating Harry.

So Harry gave him a childish look of dislike – everything always had to be childish, because Harry Dursley was nothing more than a child – and walked to the kitchen (they didn't like it when he yelled) to fetch his uncle.

"Uncle Vernon, there's some weird guy in a dress asking for you," he said fairly loudly. It was a calculated gamble; his aunt and uncle didn't like it when he was rude to strangers, but they liked freakishness even less, and he was guessing that whoever this man was, he wasn't anything normal.

Like most of his 'gambles', he was correct, as Vernon quickly turned a fierce purple shade that a corner of Harry's mind was fascinated by. More surprising – as Vernon frequently turned purple from many things, including attempting to run up the stairs – Petunia blanched white and went stock-still.

"I am here to take Potter shopping for his school supplies," the tall, dark and scary (or so he'd like to think) man said. Or, well, glowered, if glowered could be used as a tone of voice.

Vernon looked like he was going to burst, which just wouldn't do: Harry had long since decided that it would be him and none other to drive Vernon to apoplexy; time for a distraction.

"You- you mean that letter was for real?" he asked in his best confused and possibly scared voice. He then turned desperately to his aunt. "I thought it was a prank! Nobody real-" Real was a good synonym for normal, and it changed his speech enough that it didn't sound like he was mocking the Dursleys (Petunia could be worryingly bright on occasion, and he was sure she'd already caught on to a few things). "-uses _owls_ for letters," he finished with mixed disgust and disbelief.

"Unfortunately," Petunia spat, " That is exactly what some _freaks_ use."

Harry was visibly upset. Snape was annoyed and confused, which in turn made him more annoyed, because who was confused by _Muggles_?

At the end of his patience (which was possibly larger than an amoeba, if enhanced by fun house mirrors), Snape snapped. "Potter, come."

Bristling at being commanded about like a dog – one of few reactions shared between Harry Dursley and the real Harry – Harry glanced at the other adults in the room. "Best do as he says, boy," Vernon managed. He looked ready to add another comment about 'freaks', but Snape was fed up with waiting and had grabbed Harry's arm, yanking him backwards to the door.

With his free hand, Harry quickly checked to make sure he had his paper and pencil – memory was all fine and good, but unless you were one of the lucky bastards blessed with photographic memory and perfect recall, it was highly fallible. So he stuck with his notes for the most important things – and his first foray into the magical world definitely counted.

"So, do you actually _have_ a name?" Harry asked sarcastically when they got down to the walk. Because honestly, he was running out of thing to call the man mentally – and had a feeling that if he used _any_ of them aloud, he would be... whatever the magical equivalent of 'shot' was.

The man sneered at him. "Severus Snape, Potions Master. You will refer to me as Professor Snape," yet another sneer, "Or sir."

"Call me Ishmael," Harry muttered in response. All he got for his efforts was a suspicious look (well, sneer, but he'd decided it was just a given that this professor would be sneering). Maybe wizards didn't read the same kinds of books as the non-magical. Not that Harry himself had actually read the book – Melville was disturbingly long-winded when it came to whales. Almost made you think he had a fetish or something.

"Where are we-" Harry started to ask, when Professor Snape stopped, grabbed him by the arm (rather annoying; the man had only dropped his arm about five seconds earlier).

And then, suddenly, Harry was being turned inside out by his toenails – or that's what it felt like, anyway. Suddenly, he understood many rather confusing descriptions in a number of books – he'd always been annoyed that the authors couldn't explain things better, but the truth appeared to be that there was no way _to_ describe it, not without having lived it.

Nauseous from the rapid rearrangement of his molecules, Harry fell to his knees on cobblestone that definitely did not look like the road in front of Number Four Privet Drive. There was a rather pointed clearing-of-the-throat from above him, but Harry steadfastly ignored it in favor of trying not to lose his breakfast all over the cobblestones.

Another throat-clearing, however, and and Harry pulled himself together (just barely). " _So_ sorry that being pulled apart and put back together with no warning has slightly affected me. I'll soldier through, don't you fret," he muttered – he was forever muttering because he'd never actually voiced his sarcastic thoughts out loud before. It was a rather bracing experience.

As was the vision that awaited him. Now, Harry was a boy from Surrey, and from a mostly planned community. He hadn't been outside Surrey as far as he could remember. So the cluster of shops on top of shops and running into other shops with no breathing space between, and a small, winding alleyway choked with people (all wearing dresses – er, robes), well, it was a bit of a shock.

"Problem, Potter?" the professor spat at him.

"Do I have to sit up front in your class, because if I do I may want to invest in a spit-shield," Harry responded absentmindedly, barely noting the way that the originally quite sallow man was quickly turning a great number of colors. He was far too interested by the crush of humanity before him.

"Twenty points from Gryffindor, Potter!" Snape finally managed. Harry gave him a strange look in response – who or what was Gryffindor, and what were points? He knew about demerits, of course, although his school didn't give them, because they were in a good number of books about boarding schools and the like.

Which, good question. "Is Hogwarts a boarding school?" he asked curiously, not aware that it appeared he was dancing from topic to topic with no connection between. Harry was just too excited to think about what he said – and excitement was another feeling he wasn't used to, had no defenses against.

It didn't take long for him to remember himself – the first glance of the strange short creatures with elongated fingers and ears that were called goblins, and they acted nasty enough that he was knocked out of the astounded state he'd been in. Had he really been just asking plain questions? Not tricking people into giving him information without realizing it? Damn. Good thing that this guy appeared not to think much of him anyway, he could change his behavior and hopefully the man would just dismiss it because of his dislike.

(Harry had learned an important lesson a few years back: hatred and dislike made you blind, most especially when you couldn't afford to be blind. This realization didn't keep him from getting angry and disliking people, but he did make an effort not to.)

Now, however, who should he be? The naïve (albeit in a different way from Harry Dursley) boy, astounded by everything he saw? Or the arrogant brat that his escort appeared to believe him? Maybe he could strike a balance – the boy astounded by the existence and wonder of magic, and now believes the world makes sense, because all this is coming to _him_ , who deserves it. Yes, that worked. Just enough of everything for others to see what they wanted to see: the innocent boy or the arrogant brat.

It was always important not to defy expectations. Defying expectations made you unpredictable, and that scared others. And scared people were dangerous.

So when he saw the massive piles of gold (and silver, and bronze, but those weren't near as impressive looking – no one ever mentions piles of _silver_ when describing the booty that pirates loot), he allowed his shock to show, as well as pleasure. "Finally!" he muttered, low enough to seem like he was talking to himself, but loud enough for Snape to actually hear. And then, louder, and seemingly eager (which he was; but between his own mindset and the previous comment, the professor would imagine undertones to his voice), he asked, "All this is mine?"

Unsurprisingly enough, a sneer was his response, and then a command to hurry up. Harry refrained from helpfully pointing out that cursing was a good way to let anger out, instead of letting it build into ulcers, and gathered a large pile into the sack he was provided. More than he'd likely need for school (not that he knew what he'd need; what was the exchange rate for gold, anyway?), because he was planning on gathering a large number of extra supplies, if he could slip them past the sharp black eyes watching his every move.

After Gringotts (he wondered if it was named after the founder of the bank, or if meant something like 'idiot humans' in whatever language the goblins spoke), Snape informed him that he had to pick up his own supplies, and that 'Potter' would be quiet and not touch anything. As they made their way to the apothecary, Harry had a thought.

"How about you go and get your supplies, and pick up what I need from there, and I'll go get my books. That way we get things done faster?" he offered. Because honestly, he didn't particularly want to spend so much time with Snape, either. Or that much time in the magical world before he actually knew things about it – right now, this was completely uncharted territory.

Snape agreed rather quickly, and they parted ways – after Potter had been given strict orders not to even think about leaving the bookstore. Snape may have hated all Potters and everything to do with them, but he wasn't about to let the Boy-Who-Lived get kidnapped right from under him.

Harry refrained from rubbing his hands together and saying, "Excellent...", but only just barely. Because now he was left alone with books, and more than enough money to purchase a large number without Snape being any the wiser.

First things first. He made his way up to the cashier (carefully keeping his scar covered; a few people had seen it in the Alley, and had freaked out for some reason. Until he found out what the reason was, he wanted to remain incognito), and politely asked if there was some way to get his purchases shrunk, and make it so that he could shrink and unshrink them himself without using magic – one of the few things Snape had told him was that underage wizards could be expelled for using magic outside of the school, and he'd rather avoid that for now.

The clerk told him to try a squib bag – Harry wondered why he should get a bag for gun blanks, but didn't ask. They were sold at the luggage store three shops down, he was told.

Harry made a quick decision – along the lines of 'what Snape doesn't know can't hurt me' – and dashed out to the luggage shop and got a squib bag. The guy who sold him the bag eagerly informed him about the specialties of the bag – it wasn't bottomless, that was far too expensive, but it had charms on it that made things being put into the bag shrink rather extensively, and other charms that regrew the items as they were removed. In short, exactly what Harry needed.

Harry picked out one that was in a style that would actually fit the non-magical world (Muggle, perhaps? He'd heard the word bandied about, and it seemed to be used to describe non-wizards), paid, and quickly return to the bookstore. He gathered the books listed on his supply sheet, carefully set them on the counter, and then got to the fun part.

Books were Harry's trusted companions, and he did indeed love them. He picked up a large number – over ten – of magical novels, because those were what he enjoyed the most. An interesting story to wrap your mind around, and you could pick up details and facts without even realizing it.

However, he knew he'd need more that that. The 'Muggle' world, well, he'd been raised in it, so he'd picked up the culture and history and vocabulary without even being aware of it. He'd need some help with the magical world.

So he picked up even more non-fiction books; practically one for each of the subjects present in the bookstore. A large number of what must've been the magical equivalent of sociology texts. And, of course, history books. And a dictionary, because he was only recognizing half of what was on the first page of the books he'd cracked.

When all was said and done, he had enough books to start his own small library. He was incredibly glad that he'd thought to bring huge amounts of the gold, because otherwise he'd be completely out of money after just stopping at the bookstore. And Snape would probably find that peculiar.

He got his school books packaged separately, but placed the package in with his other books in the squib bag. His relatives would expect him to come back with some books – even a freak school used books – and he didn't want to make them suspicious by coming back with no books.

With that addition, the squib bag was pretty much full. Everything else, he was going to have to carry.

Snape still wasn't back, so he grabbed a piece of the wall close to the door to lean against, and pulled out the wizard dictionary. It had a function where you could write a word on the first page, and the book would flip to that entry in the dictionary and highlight the word, but instead Harry selected the 'magical dictionary' option – that is, editing out those entries that were common between both the magical and Muggle world – and began reading (after, of course, jotting down a page or two of notes on his paper; he hadn't really had much of a chance to take notes yet).

Harry had reached the entry for 'billiwig' by the time Snape showed up, and was rather involved in the text. There was so much to learn! And term started on the first of September? God, one month, and he had to become proficient in all this, while carrying on the Harry Dursley persona. This was going to be a pain in the arse.

"Potter!" Snape half-shouted at him. "Did I or did I not instruct you to _stay_ at the bookstore, no matter what?"

Oh, right, that's what he'd been forgetting. The fact that Snape would be observant enough to notice the brand-new bag. Ah well, he'd have to go with it (another rule: you never make mistakes; just unplanned opportunities). "Calm down, the store was a few shops over and I kept my head down the whole way. And since I'm obviously unmolested, I'm going to mark this one up as a success."

A snarl that reminded Harry of the one time he'd had an experience with anything resembling wildlife (which had ended with twenty-two stitches) was his only response, and the professor grabbed him by the arm and dragged him out of the shop and down the alleyway. And man, wizards were either very harsh, or very self-absorbed, because no one seemed to care about the rather evil-looking man dragging a small boy down the street.

Snape had actually gone out and gotten everything else on Harry's list that Harry himself didn't need to be there for, so their next stop was a shop called Madame Malkin's. "Ooh, I get a dress too?" he asked sarcastically.

"What, too good for robes, Potter?" Snape spat at him. Harry rolled his eyes, and continued into the shop.

Harry, contrary to most kids everywhere, rather liked having his things come from thrift shops. Clothing that fit, if not perfectly, then at least decently, and pre-worn so there was no uncomfortable starchy feeling. Sure, the trade-off was paranoia about whether or not someone had died in your clothes, but he still liked them. For another reason: no fittings. You just run into the shop, grab whatever looks like it'll fit, and take them.

Quite unlike his current situation of being used as a dress-up doll, while the proprietor of the shop chattered at him endlessly. He tuned her out with experience born of many years of enduring the dubious company of Mrs. Figg, a neighbor with far, far too many cats.

He couldn't even read a book, because of the stupid way he had to stand! God, this was _endless_.

Thankfully, a girl entered the shop not long later, so Malkin's attention got split. The girl looked a bit like a female Dudley – well, no, that was unfair. She was big enough, sure, but Harry could tell that quite a bit of it was muscle. And the uncertain expression on her face would never appear on Dudley, Harry was sure.

She was placed next to him, and Harry gave a small wave (and even _that_ slight motion got him a light smack for moving around). She nodded back, still looking rather uncertain about everything, which was a mark against her in Harry's mental tally (showing weaknesses like that). On the other hand, she wasn't looking shy or scared, just uncertain, so that was a mark in her favor.

"'Lo, I'm Harry," he offered, pretending to put a hand out to shake (they were placed too far apart to make that a reality, plus the movement of shaking hands would definitely get them smacked).

The unfortunately-shaped girl gave a rather interesting blend of grin and smirk in response. "Millicent," she offered back, mock-shaking his hand.

They both got their hands slapped for moving around, but they just grinned at each other in response. From there, they had a nice, if short, conversation, where they quickly figured out that neither of them knew near enough about the magical world to cut it – Millicent mentioned that her father had been a wizard, but he'd also been dead since she was four, so that wasn't much help, and ever since then her mother and pretty much steered clear of magic.

Harry offered that he had grown up with Muggle relatives, not even knowing he was a wizard until a few days earlier. This was safe information to give, because he'd already decided that would be perfect for his Boy-Who-Lived cover, in addition to being true (another rule: keep your lies as close to the truth as possible). All the heroes in fantasy stories came from humble beginnings, thrown unknowingly into their destiny, and people always enjoyed it when real life played into the cliches of stories.

Soon, however, Harry's fitting was done – it figured, just when things were getting interesting, or at least not boring, it was time to go.

Snape (who had somewhat just disappeared during the fitting, Harry was now realizing) managed to restrain himself from dragging Harry out, but only just barely. Harry called a good-bye over his shoulder to Millicent, promising to find her on the train, before following in Snape's wake across the busy street.

Approximately fifty wands later, all given to him by a rather creepy looking guy (honestly, he'd seen the specials on telly about pedophiles, and this guy was pinging all sorts of radar), Harry found his match. And, of course, even that couldn't be normal, oh no, it had to have the same core as whoever had given him his scar. He was starting to have some serious suspicions about that scar, between the pedophile's words and the stares he'd gotten from it. He'd long since known that it wasn't from a car crash, as his relatives attempted to get him to believe, because there wasn't enough damage for that to be true. Honestly, a car crash that kills two full grown adults, and leaves the toddler with only a single, oddly shaped scar? Come on. Harry figured even _Dudley_ could see past that excuse.

So, he thought as he paid for the wand, it had come from a wizard. So, most likely, his parents had been killed by one too. Still didn't explain the stares, though – unless the scar was some sort of, he didn't know, heir mark from the killer? It made some sense, although Harry didn't remember seeing _fear_ in anyone's eyes when they stared. Just awe, and excitement.

Perhaps his parents had been evil, and this wizard had killed them and rescued him, and now he was the heir of this great, good wizard? Or perhaps Harry had read far too many fantasy books over the years, because this was just getting ridiculous.

In any case, he (or his scar) appeared to be very well known; perhaps one of the books he'd bought today would mention him (or it). In the meantime, he had another task to complete.

"What about a pet?" he piped up, as it looked like Snape was heading to the end of the alley.

He whirled around (ah, so that was what robes were useful for, looking dramatic!). " _What_?"

Harry shrugged. "The letter said that we could have a pet. I was thinking a cat would be nice." Actually, he thought a cat would be a pain in the ass, given his experiences with Mrs. Figg and her approximately fifty trillion cats, but he had a feeling that if he asked for a toad, Snape might actually turn him into one.

(His logic: he wasn't fond of cats, and owls were just a bit strange – their main purpose appeared to be to deliver mail, and who was he going to be sending letters to? The only other option given was a toad, which Harry may not have any liking for, but wasn't against them either. And, he figured, if he was bored he could always let it loose in the girls' dorm.)

Snape stood by the door, refusing to come any closer to the animals that he was looking at as if they were already chopped up as ingredients. For their part, the animals seemed to be just as fond of him as he was of them. Harry quickly gathered all the toad supplies he'd need, and then turned to the toads themselves. Ah, perfect. It was perhaps the most typically toad-like of them all – no interesting colors, like most of them (he may not know much about the magical world, but he kind of figured those were spells or something – or selective breeding, which, if done just for colors, probably increased the likelihood of weird diseases in the toads).

He got the attention of a clerk, got the toad, and quickly paid for everything before bouncing over to Snape. "I'll call him Sir Hop-a-long," he said decisively.

Snape looked rather surprised (and a bit confused) by Harry's choice. "What happened to the cat?" he snapped.

Harry shrugged. "Cats smell weird," he responded before pushing past Snape and out into the alley. He didn't get far, though, before Snape grabbed him by the shoulder, and they got turned inside-out again before appearing on Privet Drive.

"Some warning would be nice, you know," he muttered. Snape, unsurprisingly, ignored him.

The dour professor pushed an envelope into his hand. "Your ticket. King's Cross on September 1st," he snapped, and then disappeared.

Harry glanced at the envelope, shrugged, stuffed it into a pocket, and made his way back to Number 4, planning how to spin this.


	2. Be yourself - it'll scare more people.

He'd gone with the ever-faithful I-am-scared-by-this-world-but-must-go-to-keep-them-from-coming-after-my-family reaction, which worked perfectly, although Petunia was getting a bit suspicious. So it came to be that he was dropped off at King's Cross on the first of September, with last minute instructions on how to act. Harry nodded and made sure that he looked like he was taking everything seriously, and as soon as his relatives left dropped the Harry Dursley act for the next, oh, nine months at least.

"Harry!" a voice hollered over the crowd of strangely-dressed people on Platform 9 ¾ (Harry had made his way through most of the books he'd bought, and a few of them mentioned the way to get on to the platform; it had made him wonder how many non-studious Muggleborns got left behind at the station every year). Millicent moved through the crowd rather like the parting of the Red Sea, and Harry had a flash of jealousy for her size. With him, he was lucky if he only got stepped on five times an hour.

"Hey Millicent," he greeted her when she ground to a halt in front of him. Despite her size, she wasn't breathing heavily in the least bit, making Harry further jealous. He was always out of breath when he ran places, despite having lots of practice at it.

They exchanged pleasantries, and then Millicent helped him haul his trunk onto the train, pushing past a vast number of redheads.

The compartment that Millicent had picked out earlier had someone else in it when they arrived, but a quick look at the blank tie (as opposed to the riot of colors he'd seen on older students) informed Harry that this was a fellow first year. Time for some networking!

Millicent appeared to have the same thought, as she flashed a rather terrifying smile at the boy. The boy gulped in response – although this might not have been a comment on Millicent's imminent terrifyingness, since it looked like he'd be scared of even Harry, despite Harry being half his size.

"I'm Millicent Bulstrode," she introduced herself after shoving Harry's trunk up next to hers.

"N-Neville Longbottom," the boy nervously responded.

My turn, Harry thought. "Harry Potter," he introduced himself, rather expecting the immediate choking noise that came from the boy.

Millicent blinked a little, and looked like she was attempting to remember something, before snapping her fingers. "Hey, you're famous!"

"I try," he responded dryly, flopping onto a seat. Neville was staring at him in complete shock, and Harry was perhaps too busy reveling in it, because he didn't notice as his toad wriggled out of his pocket. Said toad then launched himself across the compartment onto Neville. "Sir Hop-a-long, no!" Harry yelled, attempting to catch him. Toads could be rather cunning creatures, however, and it managed to escape.

Another toad jumped from Neville's general area, and then both of them took off out the door, past a surprised Millicent. Harry's cries of "Sir Hop-a-long!" mixed with Neville's "Trevor!", and both boys then shared a look of commiseration at the escape.

Millicent wasn't much help, as she just started cracking up, eventually having to clutch the compartment door to stay upright.

She did, however, join Harry and Neville for the toad-hunt, albeit with the occasional snicker escaping her lips. Harry took one direction; Neville and Millicent went the other way. When they finally met back up, however, they'd managed to pick up another girl, this one with a huge cloud of frizzy brown hair and unfortunate buck-teeth.

Harry had managed to keep his identity hidden from all the compartments he visited by virtue of wearing a hat, but this new girl (Hermione Granger, he later found out), recognized him practically instantly, and he was forced to drag her into their compartment to keep from alerting the entire train of his existence.

"You're Harry Potter! I've read about you, you're-" she started off, eyes burning with the crazed light that bookworms often get.

Harry rolled his eyes – mentally, that is, because the Boy-Who-Lived wasn't supposed to be sarcastic and well-read, something he had forgotten earlier in his excitement, but was now remembering. So he listened to Hermione's babbling about what she'd read about him in various books (most of which Harry had also read, and took with a grain of salt) until they arrived (thankfully not very long, or Harry might've had to scream; playing dumb and interested for such a long period of time was hell on his nerves).

Millicent rolled her eyes throughout the entire speech, but Neville wasn't even paying attention – worried about his toad, Harry decided. Harry was a bit worried about Sir Hop-a-long, but he also knew of the cunning of toads, and was pretty sure that if they hadn't been found by now, they wouldn't be found until they wanted to be.

A few minutes from arrival and Millicent and Hermione left the compartment to give Harry room to change in private. Well, semi-private – without girls around, at least. He heaved a sigh of relief before he could stop himself, but thankfully Neville appeared to not have heard.

Harry changed, and they invited the girls back in for the last bit before arrival – and thankfully, Hermione appeared to have exhausted her supply of babble on the topic of Harry himself, instead switching to somewhat useful babble about Hogwarts.

The toads made themselves known before they boarded the boats, led by the huge freaking guy with far too much hair. Neville darted forward to collect Trevor, but Harry just gave Sir Hop-a-long a look, and the toad hopped over... to Millicent. Smart ass toad.

Toads collected, Jolly Hairy Giant led them to the small fleet of boats, and Harry rather hoped he wouldn't have to row (a sentiment echoed by a few others). But lo and behold, as soon as they were all seated, the boats moved themselves!

Harry could get used to this 'magic'.

Harry couldn't help but wonder if the teachers might enjoy some excitement to break up the monotony of introductory speeches. The stern witch who'd greeted them had almost fallen asleep while giving her speech in tones that informed them all that she had said this far too many times before.

Note to self, never become a teacher.

Of course, having heard about the Sorting and listened to all the rumors the others were muttering nervously, Harry hadn't actually realized one key thing: it was going to occur in front of the whole entire school. Oh man, he was not good with this amount of attention (which was why he had been hiding his scar for the past however many hours). He was so freaked out that he didn't have any room to be freaked out about the fact that the hat was singing – and with decent meter, even.

And, he realized as they started off with Abbott, Hannah, all of his friendly acquaintances were going to be sorted before him.

Millicent squeezed his arm before heading up to the hat. She sat for a few moments before the hat called off, "Slytherin!", and then she was off to the welcoming arms of the green and silver table. Harry hoped she wouldn't get too much crap for being a halfblood – he'd read about the different houses long ago, and had figured out pretty quickly that while there wasn't actually anything allowing only purebloods into the house, within the house there was more than a little bit of prejudice.

Hermione was up next of those he knew, and she was sorted into Gryffindor to Harry's mild surprise. Surprise, because she had come off as quite the studious bookworm; only mild, because he had seen the seeds of an activist in her.

Neville also went to Gryffindor, to mostly his own surprise – Harry had been pretty sure that the boy wasn't a Slytherin or Ravenclaw, given what the books had said, but he wasn't shocked at the Gryffindor pronouncement. Honestly, they were eleven years old. It was a sign of serious mental illness if they weren't nervous and scared out of their minds.

A few more students went by, and then... "Potter, Harry." The hall filled with whispers and everyone who had been messing around in favor of paying attention to the first years immediately snapped to attention. Damn it. Harry quickly pulled on his Boy-Who-Lived mask.

Nervous, but pleased and self-important, that was how he looked as he strode up to the Sorting Hat. Ready and waiting to be sorted into Gryffindor (and hopefully those points Snape had taken away back at Diagon Alley wouldn't count, since it wasn't during term).

Gryffindor? A voice said into his mind, and he resisted the urge to jump, throw the hat on the ground, and light it on fire. Honestly, giving wands to children, especially children like himself – something was going to get set on fire in the first week, and just hopefully it wouldn't be a housemate who had been sneaking up on him.

A dry chuckle met these thoughts. I think not.

I think not to what? Gryffindor, or setting things on fire?

Gryffindor, of course. I have no doubt that you will set things on fire.

Thanks, I... think? Harry, well, thought. But wait. He quickly threw his Boy-Who-Lived persona to the forefront of his mind.

The hat (or whatever was in the hat) chuckled. Your mind is very well organized, Mr. Potter, but it is not guarded. I can see through your masks as well as those of any child's.

Well, damn.

Yes, indeed. Now, let us see... Definitely not Gryffindor, I think. You may admire nobility and courage in others, and even have much of it yourself, but it is not something that you act upon. And... you've never really had anyone or anything to be loyal to, have you? And while you're not lazy, you do not find any joy in completing tasks well. I think not Hufflepuff, either.

Definitely intelligent enough for Ravenclaw, and cunning enough for Slytherin. Hm...

Harry sighed, both mentally and aloud. If we're going to defy expectations, we might as well do it all the way, he told the hat.

The hat chuckled, and then the brim opened. "SLYTHERIN!"

The Boy-Who-Lived was shocked, but stumbled down to the Slytherin table before grabbing a seat next to Millicent. He held it together through the shocked silence that followed, and then the end of the sorting, but as soon as the food appeared he thumped his head down and groaned.

"What's wrong?" Millicent asked, reaching over his head to grab a few chicken legs.

"I'm the boy-who-lived," he muttered, "Everyone expected me to be a Gryffindor."

"True, but so?" asked another, unfamiliar voice.

Harry glanced up, and his eyes met a very calm looking black boy, carefully dissecting his own piece of chicken with a fork and knife. "Huh?"

"Does it matter what others expect? We are eleven years old, and this is a school. Does it really matter where people expected you to sleep for the next seven years?" His part apparently said, he began to feast – delicately.

Huh. Harry hadn't thought of that. The reason for being Harry Dursley was to make life easier on him at home; he'd had to keep it up while at school as well, because Dudley could and would report on him to his parents.

But here... no one was going to report back to the Dursleys; and there was only so much they could do to him directly, because it was a school. So why act, especially when suspicion was going to be thrown on him anyway, simply for his choice of dormitory?

This could even be... fun.

Not that he'd completely drop all pretenses, of course – fully admitting your own ignorance would only end badly. But he could show his true attitude – well, except to teachers, but everyone moderated their behavior in front of teachers.

"Goooood idea," he drawled, purposefully drawing out the vowel of the first word. He then rubbed his hands together and gave a low, evil cackle.

Millicent snorted at him; the black boy raised a cool eyebrow. Most of the other reactions he got were along the lines of, 'Holy shit, he's insane.' Oh yeah, he was already ruining his reputation.

Everyone introduced themselves, and Harry even managed to remember a few – the black boy who was too cool for school was named Blaise Zabini; the pale boy with a helmet of blond hair was Draco Malfoy; and the pretty girl with an unfortunate nose was named Pansy Parkinson. There were others, of course – a brunette, an incredibly scrawny boy, and two boys who were built like rocks and apparently might as well be rocks – but Harry didn't remember their names. Sure he knew that the quiet ones were always the most dangerous ones, but that was no reason to remember their names!

Some of the older students named and explained the professors (the stern one who had droned the introductory speech was Professor McGonagall, who taught Transfiguration and was in charge of Gryffindors – the older students stated that while she was, of course, biased against Slytherins – everyone was – she was probably the most fair of all the professors), and then pointed out other figures of interest.

"That's the Head Boy," one of the students with a shiny badge on his chest, pointing to a cheerful Hufflepuff, "And that's the Head Girl," this time, a charming Ravenclaw. This was for the benefit of everyone, it appeared, because only the prefects had seen them so far. Everyone looked quite satisfied with the choice.

"Aren't you disappointed that they're not Slytherins?" Harry couldn't help but ask.

The prefect snorted. "Slytherins are very rarely Head Boy or Girl – they probably wouldn't make us prefects if they could have students from the other houses as our prefects."

Another older student took over from there. "Something you've got to understand, Slytherins aren't very well liked and rarely trusted. Supposedly we're not made Heads because the other houses won't listen to us, but they never seem to acknowledge that we're not going to follow Gryffindor Heads. So Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw are about as good as we're going to get – some of them are pretty decent, surprisingly."

The prefect took over again. "Prefects are supposed to be fair to all students, but don't count on all of them to help you out, even if you're only first years. If you need help and there's no Slytherin around, go to the Hufflepuffs. They're far more likely to panic than be spiteful. And Ravenclaws are good, as long as you only ask them about academic stuff. They get so caught up in it that they'll fail to notice your house."

The same student who'd joined in before butted in again. "Not that all Gryffindors are completely against us, but until you can tell the few who aren't, just try and avoid them all."

He, Harry noted, got quite a few glowers from other students for daring not to hate all members of their rival house.

Of course, Harry was having some doubts as to either the truth of their statements, or the intelligence of the general school if they were proved true – on the one hand, teenagers were notorious for their persecution complexes, and it was rather unbelievable that a quarter of the school would be universally despised; on the other hand, Harry had been surprised by stupidity before. He supposed he'd have to wait and see.

(Up at the head table, the professors were taking news of Harry Potter's sorting in a variety of ways. Professor Snape, for instance, was muttering darkly under his breath and glowering at the boy; Professor McGonagall kept muttering, "Slytherin?" in tones of disbelief that Snape would have taken offense to, if he hadn't agreed; Hagrid appeared to be completely dumbfounded; and Professors Sprout and Flitwick were making light conversation off to one side, after Flitwick expressed disappointment that the boy hadn't gone to Ravenclaw.)

The Headmaster stood up a while later, after Harry had long-since filled up, and was currently taking a little nap on the table (not really, he was well aware of everything going on around him, but it certainly appeared he was asleep to others). Millicent nudged him in the side to "wake him up", which was kind of pointless, because it wasn't like he was saying anything interesting, other than the news that there were two areas of death on campus. Which, really, it's always a good idea two have extremely deadly areas around (and in) a building full of preteens and teenagers. That could only end well, Harry thought snidely.

Then he announced the school song, and Harry sat in absolute horror as most of the large hall burst into... well, he supposed it could be called music, in the same way that cat vomit could be considered art.

Two identical redheads were the last ones singing, in a funeral dirge. Which, yes, was somewhat amusing, but also meant they were keeping him from sleeping. "I shall despise them until the end of time," he muttered. Apparently a bit too loud, as the scrawny boy gave him a very shrewd look and Parkinson edged away from his general area. Oh well, he was trying to be himself, wasn't he?

Harry giggled to himself. Oh, Zabini would surely regret the day he'd suggested that, oh indeed he would!

Finally being released by the crazy old man who'd never heard of a barber, some of the older students led the new first years down... and down... and down. Apparently, they would be shackled to the walls to sleep, good to know.

Mind occupied with disturbing, morbid thoughts involving the various tortures he'd read about (what was that one, it was either Vikings or American Indians, the something eagle? Oh yeah, that was way vicious), Harry was rather surprised when they ground to a halt... in front of a stone wall. Aha! Obviously this whole thing was an elaborate ruse to use them as sacrifices to Satan!

...or not, as they were sternly informed of the password, and the consequences of forgetting the password or giving it out to non-Slytherins, at which an entrance appeared. Perhaps there was a torture chamber laying in wait, hidden so the authorities wouldn't stumble upon it!

Sometimes Harry wondered at his mind.

"Welcome to Slytherin. The boys rooms are to the left, girls to the right. On each of your beds you will find a pamphlet, which you are expected to have read by breakfast tomorrow, so either read it immediately, or make time in the morning, as we will not let you embarrass the Slytherin name. Now goodnight."

Further note to self, Harry thought, don't become a Prefect either. They seemed to have just as many fun and interesting (sarcasm) speeches as teachers did!

Actually, for all his previous exhaustion and wish to collapse, Harry found himself surprisingly energetic when it came to reading this mysterious 'pamphlet' they were all so worked up about. He just knew he wouldn't be able to sleep before he read it.

He was sorely disappointed. The pamphlet was apparently a guide on how to be a Slytherin, and filled with numerous cliches and rather appalling grammar and spelling mistakes. It seemed he had gotten into the House of People Who Think They're Cool For Using Tired Plays on Common Sayings. He always had the best luck.


	3. Nice guys finish last; smartasses stand on the sidelines and laugh.

The other first year Slytherins were highly impressed with the stupid little book, however. Or at least Malfoy was, and everyone was following his lead, which was a definite possibility – and a rather annoying one.

Sitting at the breakfast table, Harry scribbled out his first impressions of his peers into his ever-present notebook while everyone else whispered in awe about the rules of being Slytherin. Millicent, of course, he had already recorded, and just made a few additional notes on; then, to be orderly, he started pages on Neville Longbottom and Hermione Granger, whose notes were currently 'has a toad', and 'distract with large books', respectively. Finally, he got to his housemates.

He was tempted to give Crabbe and Goyle a shared page, as they appeared to be the same person for all intents and purposes, but he just knew that would come back to bite him on the ass if he did such a thing. So they each got a page, with the same note of 'rock?' on each.

Next, Blaise Zabini. Sophisticated and in control, but content to allow Malfoy the reigns of power. A true Slytherin, Harry decided. Speaking of Malfoy, he quickly jotted down the similarities between his morbidly overweight cousin, and the blond. The chief difference appeared to be that Malfoy wasn't fond of doing the dirty work himself, and relied more on verbal insults than punching people. Which was definitely a plus in Harry's books.

And then, the final boy, Theodore Nott. Between the vibes he'd gotten off the boy the previous night, and his behavior that morning, Harry had decided it would be useful to remember his name, and actually use it if he talked with the boy – which he probably wouldn't, as it appeared that Nott was mute.

Then, the girls. Pansy Parkinson, who gave off the classic signs of being a follower simply because it was too much of a hassle to lead – she would be easy to sway to his plan of world domination, a plan he had just come up with approximately thirty minutes ago – but was also sort of a daddy's princess.

And then there was the last girl, Greengrass, who Harry had decided to call Redrose just because he was like that. She had failed to make much of any impression, which naturally made her the most suspicious of them all – they were eleven years old, even Harry'd given off the impression of being mildly psychotic! To be that self-contained was just... unnatural.

Having finished his notes, Harry returned his notebook to his bag (the squib one, which he had all of his school books crammed into so he wouldn't have to return to the dorms once they got their schedules), and started eating. And paying attention to his classmates.

He was immediately annoyed, because it seemed that Malfoy and Parkinson were the only ones who would talk, with Zabini and Redrose making the rare comment. Okay, Crabbe and Goyle probably didn't have the mental capacity to use human language, and Nott was a mute, but Millicent at least should be talking!

...so should he, for that matter.

Noticing for the first time that someone had – perhaps with _magic_? – handed out schedules, he glanced at it with interest. They had two classes that day, Transfiguration and History of Magic. Using his amazing skills of deduction, Harry decided that the first class was about changing things from one thing to another, and the second was a history class. Ah, his brilliance astounded even him sometimes.

"So Millicent, Nott, are you looking forward to learning to be Jesus?" In his mind, this made total sense. Water into wine, that was a transfigur-whatsit, right?

Apparently, however, most people didn't think like he did. Which, if he was honest with himself, could only be a good thing. In any case, not only did the two he was talking to stare at him as if he'd lost his mind, so did everyone else who'd heard. He considered, for a moment, explaining his thought process... but nah, this was way more fun.

After a moment, Millicent turned away from him and cautiously told the others, "Everything I've heard about transfiguration makes it seem to be the hardest class. I wonder what we'll start off learning."

Well, at least part of his goal was accomplished, Millicent was joining in on the conversation, and even Zabini and Redrose were contributing more in the vicious debate over what they would be taught. Parkinson thought that they'd be learning how to change people into animals; Zabini was cynical and said it would al just be theory and they wouldn't do anything; Harry, of course, insisted near-fanatically that it would _so_ be water into wine.

In reality, it turned out to be matchsticks into needles. Much better than a theory class, but Harry was still disappointed. He wanted some wine, damn it!

(Apparently he wasn't the only one, as he heard a Gryffindor boy chanting "turn this water into rum" over at their table when he passed by for lunch. There was then a small explosion, which was actually possibly cooler than alcohol. He'd have to take a poll.)

By the end of the day, Harry had discovered that they did indeed have naptime outside of nursery school; they just cleverly disguised it from authorities by calling it 'History of Magic'. It made him slightly sad, because he'd always enjoyed history lessons back in primary school, and was sure the magical world had very interesting history. But alas, it was not to be, because Harry was not one of the rare students that could separate the subject from the teacher.

The rest of the week was certainly interesting. In Charms, they met the incredibly short Professor Flitwick, began to learn the Lumos charm (Harry almost got it, but instead accidentally blew up Parkinson's ink well, and she refused to speak to him for the rest of the day), and afterwards debated whether or not Flitwick was related to the goblins. A discussion which ended when Harry had gone off on a tangent about a book he'd read about primordial dwarfs, which Flitwick wasn't but maybe primordial dwarfism was actually carried by a latent gene left by a magical ancestor, and had anyone attempted to do scientific research on magic before?

Malfoy had stared at him for a long moment, and then muttered something derogatory about Muggles, and being raised by Muggles. Harry didn't really care.

Then there was Herbology, which turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. Harry had managed to get into an argument with his work partner, Terry Boot, which had rapidly devolved into shouting and the throwing of handfuls of soil, and landed both of them with detention for a week. Astronomy passed in a sleepy haze, because unlike most adolescents, Harry did not enjoy staying up late, and having class at _midnight_ was just insanity.

It only took him halfway through Defense Against the Dark Arts to decide that the class was a complete and total waste of time – at least under Professor Squirrel, or whatever his name was. At that point, he pleaded sick and got to leave for the hospital wing. It wasn't entirely a lie, since his scar kept giving off painful twinges and he was getting a pretty big headache from the reek of garlic, but Harry didn't go to the Hospital Wing. Instead, he went to the library where, he had decided, he would be spending all future Defense class periods, in the hopes that the time might actually be useful.

Finally, it came time for the class he had been looking forward to the most – Potions. Okay, the fact that he was looking forward to it entirely so that he could annoy his Head of House, probably not the best thing in the world, but it worked for him.

The class started off with pure intimidation, and Harry admiringly jotted down a few notes on how to terrify eleven year olds – although really, given that Dudley was able to do it, probably not a difficult task – as Snape dangerously hissed a short speech out at them. Then came roll call, where there was a slight, unpleasant pause over Harry's name, before continuing.

"Potter, what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?" Snape suddenly asked. Honestly, it was a good thing Harry was a minor bibliophile who had thought to study extra on potions after having met the Potions professor, because that was _so_ not in the first year Potions text. Honestly.

"Well, if you brewed it right, you'd get Draught of Living Death, which makes whoever takes it fall into a sleep so deep they look like they're dead. You know, I read about this medical condition, cata-something, that some people have, and when they get too excited, they can have an attack and they fall over and appear to be dead, but then later they wake up and they're fine. There was this one lady who's woken up in the morgue four times, and-" Harry probably could have continued all day and well into the night, which was why it was good thing Snape shut him up around then.

These poor people, they had no idea how long Harry could ramble if given the chance. But still, that was no reason to use an actual silencing _spell_ on him!

Harry spent the rest of the class silently fuming... and then silently laughing up a storm when poor Neville managed to go _completely_ wrong with the directions and hurt himself rather severely. Oh, sure, the kid had been all right on the train, and harry felt a bit sorry for him, but it was still rather hilarious. Harry would've had the same reaction if Millicent had been the unfortunate one.

Then it was off to another History class, and it was a good thing that they had Charms again that afternoon, or Harry might not have ever gotten the stupid silencing charm off, since Snape appeared to have totally forgotten, and any of his classmates who noticed him being unusually quiet were just thankful for the break – Zabini had actually let out a small groan when Flitwick canceled the spell. Harry snottily informed him that he'd gotten two entire class periods and a meal, and should be thankful that it lasted that long.

Finally, after nearly two weeks, came the first flying lesson.

Harry was of course interested in flying – who wouldn't be? He was, however, rather disappointed that it had to be done on brooms, rather than without outside aid, or by growing a pair of wings. That would be so much cooler. But he supposed he could make do with this.

But if he heard one more mangling of a Muggle word like 'helicopter', he would possibly snap and go on a murderous rampage. Honestly, it wasn't like the Muggleborns were wandering around calling things 'transfirmation' and 'can-itch', or something. It was a matter of respect! And even if not respect, it was at least a matter of not revealing your own stupidity.

Thankfully, he'd already managed to put a Dursley-style ignore filter over Draco Malfoy, and he was the main Slytherin bragging about things. Harry could only imagine what he'd do if he were another house, where _everyone_ appeared to enjoy talking, rather than just leaving it up to two or three.

But honestly, he could already guess this would end badly, because it was a class with _all_ of the first years. Nearly forty eleven year olds, one teacher? Even if it wasn't something potentially dangerous, that would spell disaster.

Although he was always right, even Harry did not know _how_ right he was.

It was only a few minutes into the lesson, and Neville hit the ground with a rather sickening crunching noise. Harry, who had never had the joys of being exposed to media violence due to... well, being kept away from media, quickly turned a light shade of green at the sound. He'd always been too sneaky to have broken bones, although he had collected a massive amount of bruises over the years, so this was his first exposure to the sound. And hopefully last, magical healing or no.

They were ordered to stay off their brooms on threat of death – and/or expulsion – and then the teacher took Neville to the Hospital Wing. "That was nice of her," Harry muttered to Millicent and Hermione, who were on either side of him. "This way we absolutely know someone will get on their broom."

Hermione gave him an annoyed look, but it was wiped off her face when Malfoy caught sight of something that had fallen out of Neville's pocket. "Look, Longbottom dropped his Remembrall! I think I'll leave it in a tree for him to find," Malfoy said confidently, seizing the object and rising up on his broom.

Harry watched in mild interest as the younger brother of his mortal enemies (whose names he really ought to learn) went after Malfoy. "Give it back, Malfoy!" Ah, such witty conversation, it was an honor to be in his presence, surely.

"Why don't you go and _fetch_ it, Weasley?" Malfoy said with a smirk, before throwing it to the ground.

Weasley tried to get it, but had to pull up before he reached the ball in order to not crash. He, and the other Gryffindors, looked on helplessly as it plummeted to the ground.

Hermione, meanwhile, yanked on Harry's arm and hissed, "Do something!"

Harry gave her a weird look, and then watched in amusement as the Remembrall hit the ground... bounced twice, and then rolled to a stop. Then, he turned to the shocked Hermione. "Honestly, it didn't break when it fell out of Neville's pocket, what made you think it would break this time?" He paused, thoughtful. "For that matter, if Neville's grandmother was really dumb enough to send him something glass without making sure it was unbreakable, she really deserved to have to buy another.

"For that matter, what's the point of something that tells you you've forgotten something without telling you what?" Harry'd finally remembered what a Remembrall was.

"Mr. Weasley! Mr. Malfoy!" came a shriek from closer to the castle. The Transfiguration professor was striding out and looked rather like she'd eaten a very large batch of lemons. "Ten points from Gryffindor and Slytherin! And you both will be serving detention with Filch tonight!"

She continued to rant at them while the rest of the class looked on in amazement, so Harry shrugged and sat cross-legged on the ground, pulling out one of the books he'd gotten from a Muggle store after discovering his apparent wealth (apparently, you could owl-order money exchanges from Gringotts, who knew?). Yossarian, Harry decided, was definitely his kind of hero – that is, not one.


	4. Early bird gets the worm - or the anaconda, depending on its luck.

It was nice out, so Harry decided to stay out and read. Millicent attempted to get him to budge, but Harry had whined at her until she'd given up and gone back inside. It had taken about two minutes, as she didn't particularly _care_.

It was almost dark when Harry got interrupted by a smirking voice (well, if voices _could_ smirk). _"Ah, what foolsss these mortalsss be!"_

Harry glanced around wildly. _"Whoever iss quoting Ssshakessspeare at me, ssshow yourssselves!"_ If there was one thing Harry disliked, it was definitely Shakespeare. Thankfully, however, there was a great number of things Harry disliked, so Shakespeare didn't have to feel singled out.

" _AAAAH, holy sssshit!_ " the formerly smirking voice cried out. _"I'm hearing voicesss again!"_

At this point, Harry caught sight of who – or rather _what_ – was talking to him. _"A sssnake? I'm talking to a sssnake? Ssseriousssly?"_

The snake, a small brown one with red stripes, appeared to have a minor stroke. _"Holy sssshit, he'ss really freakin' talkin' to me! Sssshnikies!"_

Harry stared at the snake. Who or what in the name of Hades was 'shnikies'?

Well, anyway.

" _Ssso, what'ss your name?"_ he asked after the snake stopped spasming wildly.

" _Dave."_

" _What, really?"_ Harry was completely nonplussed by this. _"That'ss not very impressssive."_

The snake appeared to puff himself up, and then promptly started telling him off using language that if it had come out of Dudley's mouth, even Aunt Petunia would be sticking soap in his mouth for a month.

" _Okay, okay, jeez, I'm sssorry!"_ Harry snapped after a minute of being bitched out. _"You gotta admit that it'ss not exactly what you'd expect a sssnake to be named, though."_

Dave sniffed – which was a really bizarre thing to see a snake do, really, – but acknowledged the fact that yes, Dave was not a name to strike fear into the hearts of the unworthy.

" _What kind of sssnake are you?"_ Harry asked after a moment of silence. Dave was, he'd say, about normal size for pet snakes, maybe two feet long? Not that he'd ever seen pet snakes or anything, but it seemed the right size. He was a muddy brown color with a few wide-spread bands of red down his body.

" _Hell if I know,"_ Dave said, with a shrug. You think a snake giving a dignified sniff was weird? Try watching one shrug. Harry had the sudden urge to go take a shower to get the creepiness off of him.

" _What do you mean?"_

" _Well,"_ this was said in tones of 'humor the idiot', a tone Harry was quite used to at the Dursleys, not so much here where he was totally the smartest of the first year Slytherins, _"Sssay you were abandoned as a baby and then adopted. Would you know your ethnic background?"_

He had a good point. And man, it kind of sucked to be outsmarted by a snake.

An annoying chime went off right about then, and Harry jumped and flailed momentarily before remembering the watch he'd owl-ordered the previous week, and glanced down at it. " _Ah, it'sss time for dinner!_ " he said happily, not even noticing that he was still speaking in hisses, his mind currently defaulting to it.

" _I wanna go!_ " If he had been anyone else – or, rather, some _thing_ else, say a human – Harry would've sworn that Dave just whined.

Although, considering what he'd seen so far of the magical world, it wasn't beyond belief that snakes could whine, he supposed.

" _Ssso come,_ " Harry told the snake. " _Nobody'sss sstopping you._ "

" _Good idea!_ " Dave said cheerfully, before darting at Harry. Before he could do anything, the snake was easily climbing up his body to finally wrap around his left arm. " _Let'sss go already!_ " the snake demanded, nipping Harry's thumb for emphasis.

Harry wasn't really one for companionship – he'd chosen Sir Hop-a-long as a pet entirely because he didn't foresee himself really getting that attached to a toad, of all things. Heck, he probably wouldn't have even gotten a pet in the first place if he hadn't seen the extra trip as another chance to annoy and confound Professor Snape.

As far as friends... well, he supposed he could consider Millicent one, his first _real_ one, and their friendship generally extended as far as sitting next to each other in class and occasionally sharing sarcasm. And he was quite happy with the state of things.

So why he decided to invite a snake along with him, and allow it to take such liberties with his person, he really couldn't say. Other than the sheer novelty of a snake named Dave, anyway.

Turned out that for a house who was quite proud of their snake mascot, precious few of his housemates actually liked snakes, as proved when half of the first and second years started shrieking and scrambling to get away from him when he set Dave on the table. Amusingly enough, Malfoy was one of them, which was worth any trouble Harry might get into for picking up an unknown snake and bringing it to dinner.

"Potter, where in the world did you get an Aceleptian serpent?" Parkinson asked, out of nowhere. She was the only one who appeared to be completed unaffected – a few others had managed to restrain their impulses to jump and scream, but were still eying the snake uneasily.

"Front lawn," he replied to Parkinson with a shrug. "His name's Dave."

He got a few incredulous stares for that comment, which also helped them calm down. An unfortunate side-effect, if you asked Harry. He rather liked having the entire house terror-stricken.

"What's an Aceleptian serpent, anyway?" he asked Pansy after a moment, having gotten bored of being stared at.

Pansy shrugged, and flipped a piece of meat at Dave, who gobbled it up happily. "The least magical magical creature in existence, it's generally agreed. They just have a much longer lifespan than most snakes and a higher intelligence."

Harry tilted his head to the side, and considered this. "Well, that's pretty lame."

Dave bit him for his cheek, and Harry reeled back, cursing in French.

"Ahem." Ah, dark and evil and possibly sexy, if Harry was to believe the whispers of some of the older Slytherin girls. It must be Snape standing behind him! So Harry titled his head backwards until he could see an upside-down Potions Master, and attempted to grin disarmingly. Not having much will or opportunity to be charming, he had never practiced this before, so it came out looking like vaguely curious constipation.

Apparently, Snape was a fan of laxatives, because this just appeared to piss him off more. "Is there a reason," he asked silkily (causing two sixth year girls further up the table to sigh romantically), "That you are using such foul language at the dinner table?"

Harry considered, for a moment, telling him it was because he didn't think anyone knew French. However, he already had detention for the week for... various reasons, and was hoping on having a free evening some time before he turned twenty, so he went for the truth. Well, the more relevant truth – he really _hadn't_ thought anyone knew French. "Dave bit me."

"..." In a lesser man, there probably would have been a confused, "What?" in the silence, but Severus Snape was no lesser man. So he just stared at Harry for a long moment, until Harry hoisted the annoying, Shakespeare-loving snake in the air.

"I insulted his breed," Harry offered as Dave stared down Snape.

" _I ssshould totally crossss my eyesss at him_ ," Dave informed him like it was a possibility. Harry, having a feeling that hissing at the snake would cause a small panic, settled for tightening his hands just a bit as a warning. " _You're no fun,_ " the snake told him sulkily.

"Why," Snape said slowly, with a bit of a minor eye tic, "do you have a snake?"

("Aceleptian serpent," Pansy offered up helpfully, although Snape ignored her.)

Harry considered this for a long moment. "I think he's my familiar," he declared suddenly, before nodding decisively. Familiars weren't as all pervasive as Muggle stories would have you believe, but they weren't rare either.

"You. Have a snake familiar." If there had been any more disbelief in Snape's tone, he probably would have choked on it. Of course, he had every reason to be shocked – after all, familiars were known to have very similar personalities to the wizard or witch they bonded with. Severus Snape, however, fell into the trap of thinking that snakes were, down to a one, the perfect smooth and cunning Slytherin. In reality, most animals could have the same range of personality as humans, especially the more intelligent ones.

Even had he known this, however, Snape had no way of knowing that Dave was a mentally imbalanced bibliophile with a weird sense of humor – to wit, he had no way of knowing that Dave and Harry were very much alike.

"Totally, dude. I mean, sir," Harry hastily corrected himself, hoping not to get shot.

Snape heaved a put-upon sigh. "As your detentions with Filch appear to be doing little to deter your behavior, you will be serving your remaining detentions with me. My office, after dinner." With that, he stalked away.

Harry watched him for a second, then turned to his housemates, Millicent in particular. "I think he's becoming used to me."

"Merlin forbid," Malfoy muttered, stabbing a potato with his fork.

* * *

"You will be crushing snake fangs for tonight's detention," Snape informed him the second he stepped into the office. "It is already set up for you."

"Come on!" Harry said indignantly. "All I had to do for Filch was clean some stupid trophies, you want me to grind up _bone_."

Snape, rather than screaming at him or sending a freezing glower, gave him a disdainful look. " _No_ , I want you to _crush_ snake fangs."

"..." Unlike Snape, Harry was _not_ not a lesser man, he was less enough of a man that he couldn't even try for a confused 'what?' He was too busy thinking, is Snape really making an argument over semantics? _Really_?

"You won't be leaving until the barrel is crushed, I would start now," Snape informed him, turning back to the stack of essays on his desk.

Crushing bones – and teeth were totally bones, whatever Snape tried to say – was horrible. Honestly, had Harry not been living the live of an indentured servant for the last eight years of his life, he would have dropped dead halfway through the barrel. As it was, he didn't finish up until it was almost midnight and his arms were about to fall off. Snape eyed his work, pronounced it adequate, and sent him back to his dorm.

However, he had just barely stepped into the common room when he was hailed with a loud, "Psst, Potter, c'mere!" from the group huddled close to the fire. All of his yearmates were awake and gathered in a conspiratorial huddle, with a few older students (mostly fifth and seventh years who were already freaking out over the end of year exams) scattered through the room. Slytherins weren't strict about bedtimes.

"Nott just came in a bit before you, he was in the third floor corridor!" Parkinson informed him excitedly. Ever since he had shown up with Dave earlier that day, she'd apparently decided that he was her bestest friend.

"So what's the guaranteed death, and will we catch it if we stand too close to you?" Harry asked, going into what Millicent had snidely referred to as 'reporter pose' the previous week.

"A giant three headed dog." That was Nott, as succinct as possible.

Harry considered asking Nott what, exactly, he had been doing out and about at two in the morning (or whatever time it actually was, Harry was too bored to check his watch), but then decided that he didn't actually care. This news of a giant three-headed dog was far more interesting. "So the gates of hell are in a school of magic? Who knew?" he muttered. Millicent elbowed him rather harshly in the side, and only rolled her eyes when he pouted at her. Really, she was getting far too used to him, taking such liberties with his person!

By this point in the term, the rest of his house was used to his nonsensical (to purebloods, at least) ramblings, and completely ignored him.

"Just wait until I tell Father what that crazy old man has here!" For once, it wasn't Draco Malfoy whining about his father, but Pansy Parkinson. It may have just been Harry's imagination, but he was pretty sure she was excited by the prospect."He's going to kill us all!"

"I should be so lucky," Harry muttered, this time receiving a kick from Millicent. Such violence!

"You know," Harry said thoughtfully a minute later, interrupting the rapidly more hysterical complaints, "it's rather odd that Dumbledore would keep a creature such as that in the castle and only use a locked door and a vague warning at the beginning of the school year to guard it."

"So, what?" Zabini asked. "You think the creature is a precautionary measure in itself?" Noticing the blank looks on a few of the faces, he sighed and rephrased, "It's guarding something?"

Harry actually _hadn't_ thought that, but it was a good idea. "Or," he shrugged, "The Headmaster's hoping students will go in there and get eaten, to cut down on the cost of feed."

They stared at him for a few minutes before deciding that he'd gone back to his usual comments, rather than anything useful or interesting. "We should find out what it's guarding," Malfoy decided suddenly.

Harry snorted, but then noticed that his idiot classmates were, for the most part, nodding thoughtfully. Come _on_ , Slytherins were supposed to be cunning, not moronically curious!

"Which is why we will do it without being caught," Parkinson informed him, letting him know that he had actually been speaking out loud.

"Why don't we first find out if it _is_ guarding anything, before we try and take on a giant Cerberus?" Harry finally said, giving in to the stupidity of fellow eleven year olds.

"Well, sure, but how are we supposed to do that?" Millicent asked.

Harry couldn't help it; he rolled his eyes again. "Gee, let's think," he said, voice heavy with sarcasm, "Who in this whole entire school is infamous for knowing about large and deadly creatures in close vicinity with helpless schoolchildren?"

Proving that Slytherins were fairly observant, if not that quick on the uptake, understanding dawned. "Hagrid?" Goyle double-checked. This time, Harry wasn't the only one rolling their eyes.

"So, what, we go and interrogate the filthy giant?" Parkinson asked sceptically. "He doesn't seem that bright, but even he would be able to figure that something is up."

He never should have opened his big mouth, because Harry knew he was the only one who had any contact with the large groundskeeper, who had sought him out in order to babble tearfully about Harry's parents. Which meant... taking one for the team. Harry shuddered. He was sooo not a team player.

Thankfully, he could at least protest the most logical answer, because Millicent spoke up before he was forced to. "Harry and I will go, Hagrid knew his parents, plus we can pretend to be asking about Dave," she said decisively.

"We'll _what_?" squawked Harry indignantly, although pleased that she didn't sneer at his familiar's name, like everyone else had. "I don't remember signing up for this fantastic odyssey!" His word choice drew a few weird looks, but he was otherwise ignored.

"Okay, so Potter and Bulstrode will interrogate Hagrid tomorrow. Then we'll gather information on three headed dogs as well as what could possibly be under the trapdoor. Agreed?" Parkinson summed up quickly and bossily. Everyone agreed quickly, except Malfoy who was sulking because Parkinson had taken control from him, and Harry, who was sulking because... well, he forgot why, but he was definitely sulking.


	5. Ask me no questions, I'll probably still lie.

There were a great many things wrong with the plan, and Harry couldn't help formulate them into somewhat of an essay form. They'd learned how to write essays in school last year, and Harry had been sure to practice mentally for the day when he would be attending a different school than Dudley and as such could blame better grades on the declining standards of non-Smeltings schools.

First, there was the fact that had it not been mentioned, Harry wouldn't have even remembered the impossibly huge man's name. How his accursed housemates were expecting him to buddy up with a guy he couldn't remember the name of, he had no idea.

Secondly, Harry barely got along with Millicent, who would most likely shrug at the Dark Lord and say, "Sup?", she was that laid back. (She wouldn't actually do that, of course; although laid back, she also had a strong survival instinct.) And yet she felt the urge to smack him pretty much every time he opened his mouth. Sure, he could try acting, but he'd never been forced to act _friendly_ before. Harry Dursley wasn't friendly, and his short stint as the Boy-Who-Lived hadn't been either.

Finally, there was the simple fact that Harry seriously did not care. At all. He so didn't care, it almost circled back around and made him care – almost. Not quite. Someone who was sufficiently motivated could easily get over the hurdles posed by the first two problems, but Harry really wasn't. So there was a giant three-headed dog in the middle of the school that could possibly escape and go on a murderous rampage devouring small children. Honestly, sounded about par for the course that he'd seen in the magical world so far.

So it was entirely beyond him how he got to be sitting in the stone hut on the lawn, in a comically oversized chair, staring dubiously at the 'cakes' Hagrid had set out.

Millicent made the usual pleasantries - "Hi, how are you, what ferociously bloodthirsty creature are you making goo-goo eyes at this week" - and then elbowed him harshly in the side. That, he assumed, was his cue.

Harry slipped a few of the cakes into his bag, still undecided as to whether they'd be good weapons, part of a planned experiment to see what Crabbe and Goyle _wouldn't_ eat, or if he wanted to attempt a scientific breakdown of the ingredients. Then he cleared his throat. "So what's the three headed dog on the third floor guarding?"

Millicent actually punched him for that one, but honestly. What had they been expecting?

Hagrid spluttered for a few minutes. "Now, don't ya worry 'bout that. That's between Professor Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel, that is."

Millicent's eyes gleamed with the small bit of information. "Oh, certainly Mr. Hagrid. Harry and I've got to go now, have a good night," she said hurriedly, grabbing Harry by the arm and hauling him out, conveniently ignoring Harry's muttered, "Have a good _life_ , more like, I ain't coming back here, no sir."

The (much) larger girl continued dragging Harry all the way up to the castle, and then into the Great Hall where their yearmates had decided to convene before lunch. Unfortunately, they hadn't been the only ones with that brilliant idea, so Harry wound up being dragged past a quarter of the school and Professors Sprout and Snape.

"Thanks, Millie, that doesn't effect my ego at all," he muttered as she finally let him go after pushing him onto a bench. She ignored him, and quickly sat down next to him.

"Flamel," she hissed at the rest of the first years. "He said that whatever the dog is guarding is between Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel."

She delivered this with a grand whisper, like it should mean something to them. When they all just looked at her blankly, she sighed and slumped a bit. "Damn, I was hoping one of you would know who that was."

Harry snorted at that. "That would require them using books as more than just things to throw at Gryffindors," he pointed out. When he received full glares from the rest of his – dare he refer to them as _friends_? The very thought made him shudder – he rolled his eyes. "Oh come on, like I'm wrong."

Parkinson, at least, had the grace to look embarrassed, before clearing her throat. "I suppose we'll just have to research this Flamel person, then," she said, in tones of someone who would be immediately passing the job onto someone else.

"I think we should figure out what three headed dog was, too, and if there's a way to get past it," Millicent quickly disagreed.

Malfoy took control of the group again, glaring at the two girls. He decided that the boys would research the monster, while the girls would take Flamel, and quickly informed the group of that fact.

"But then you've got twice as many!" Pansy complained, gesturing at the boys.

"Yes, but it's Crabbe, Goyle, and Potter. You really think that will help?"

"...you've got a point."

Harry felt like he should perhaps feel insulted... and he was, just not for the reason he _should_ be. That is, he was insulted that they were so terribly used to him this early on in the year. They were quite right about the amount of help he, Crabbe, and Goyle would be.

Which reminded him. "Hey Lobster and Gargoyle, I saved you some cake from Hagrid's," he said, hefting a chunk of rock out of his pocket and setting it between the two. "Enjoy!"

And then he wandered away from the table, because there was honestly only so much house bonding he could stand. (Besides, he felt no particular urge to see the results of most of his misdeeds; it was enough to merely know he had done them. This did not, however, keep him from smirking spectacularly when he heard a cry of pain from one of the louts, who'd decided to try and bite down immediately.)

"Mr. Potter." Ah, he'd wondered if he'd make it through the day without his name being said in the especially disdainful manner. Apparently not!

"Professor Snape, such a surprise it is to see you on this fine day!" he chirped, tilting his head back as far as possible to get a slight glimpse of an upside-down Severus Snape. "Whatever are you doing in such a place?"

Snape, Harry was gratified to see, wasn't as laid back as his housemates, as the professor's eye started twitching – just a bit, but enough to make Harry feel appreciated. "What are you and your _friends_ conspiring about?" he asked, giving an extra sneer when he said friends.

Harry totally understood that, he did the same thing when talking about the group he'd just left behind.

"Oh, the usual," Harry instantly replied, very blasé about it. "Overthrowing society as we know it and enslaving the less worthy. Malfoy, Parkinson, and Bulstrode were arguing over who gets to lead the glorious revolution. The fools think I shall relinquish my power, but they shall learn, oh how they shall learn!" Here he stopped for an evil cackle.

Snape had stopped walking in favor of just staring at him, before he shook his head to clear it. "Right," he said sarcastically. "Detention, Potter, now."

Harry sniffed righteously, and would've argued, but it had hit that he sounded a bit Voldemort-ish in that last rant, and figured he probably deserved it.

(Well, okay, he would've deserved it even _without_ stirring up memories of terror. Harry pretty much always deserved it.)

In any case, Harry didn't particularly _mind_ detention. It wasn't his personal favorite thing in the world, but it wasn't the worst thing ever either. Even with Snape. There was something satisfying in actually _doing_ something, especially when not being used as sheer slave labor. Plus, being so at ease with Snape detentions increased his aura of strangeness.

Which he didn't exactly need help with, but whatever.

"Sit," Snape demanded the second they reached the Potions classroom. Harry started to sit – directly in the doorway, mind, because he was a big fan of the letter of the law and not the spirit – except Snape had whipped his wand out and pointed it directly at his forehead... without turning around or stopping his stride. " _Properly_."

Muttering to himself (not actually saying anything, just random syllables), Harry perched himself upon a stool and pouted at Snape. Snape, for his part, completely ignored the first year.

And kept ignoring him.

...and ignored him some more.

A few hours later (or about three minutes, Harry wasn't too good with counting), Harry finally snapped. "So what's my detention?" he demanded, crossing his arms over his chest.

Snape didn't even bother glancing up from the papers he was marking at his desk. "Staying put and doing nothing."

Harry probably just imagined the ending of that sentence, which was 'nothing more to disrupt my sanity'.

"That's not detention!" Harry said indignantly. "That's... I dunno, but it's not detention," he finished somewhat weakly. Snape, however, appeared to have gone back to ignoring him.

Harry spent a few more minutes aimlessly swinging his feet and attempting to make patterns in the air before he got bored again. "So, you're ignoring me?" After a few moments with no response, he decided that yes, his head of house was indeed ignoring him. "That's not a little teenage-girl for you? Giving me the cold shoulder and all?" Still no reaction. "I wasn't even aware we had broken up," he said, half-heartedly faking some sniffles.

And there was no silence. Dear God, but the man had actually found an effective punishment for him – while the first eleven years of his life had more or less been spent actively striving for unnoticed anonymity, his short time at Hogwarts had taught Harry a very important lesson: it was awesome to get noticed when it meant you wouldn't be starved in response.

He was well-aware that as an eleven-year-old, pouting was not precisely an age appropriate activity. But he couldn't help it, the only people he knew even remotely close to his own age were Slytherins and, well, Dudley. He was still being about ten times more mature.

The boredom was excruciating – almost as bad as being ignored. Somehow, he managed to make it through the full two hours Snape apparently required of him. (Later, he wouldn't be sure if it had seemed twice as long, or half as long, since he wasn't actually _doing_ anything.)

"Dismissed, Potter," Snape suddenly said, still not looking up from his grading. Harry didn't bother saying anything – he wasn't sure what he'd do if Snape ignored him even after the detention was over, so he just didn't risk it and instead quietly left the room.

He stood in the dungeon hallway for a few seconds, trying to decide where was best to sulk. It didn't take too long, because he was, after all, in a school – the one place guaranteed to be deserted was the library.

Harry had forgotten about a certain girl named Hermione J. Granger. Well, more accurately he had forgotten about Hermione Granger – he had no idea what her middle name was, so how could he have forgotten about Hermione J. Granger?

"What's wrong? Are the other Slytherins being mean to you? I knew you'd never fit in with them, you're much too nice, and-"

She probably would've kept talking, except Harry decided to try out one of his theories. "Look! A book! Oooh," he said temptingly, waving a random book around in front of her face.

The bushy haired girl glowered at him. Damn, he guessed that meant it hadn't worked. "That," she said in tones that made him envision what Antarctica possibly looked like (assuming it wasn't, like, a hidden continent of witches and wizards or some other such bizarre shit), "Is _Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches_."

"I knew that!" Harry said defensively, before turning the book around in disbelief. "Why the hell is this in a school library?"

"It isn't," a new voice spoke up. "You just took it off my table."

Harry slowly turned around, to be faced with... a very large, burly guy, in disheveled Gryffindor robes. Staring down at him. Eep.

...he totally did _not_ say 'eep' out loud. Except that he had. Damn it.

"So, Slytherin, gonna stop bothering the girl, or do I have to make you?" the guy continued, crossing his impressively large arms (the better to strangle with, Harry's mind hysterically muttered). So unfair that he was going to be violently murdered because that spaz of a bookworm wouldn't stop harassing him.

"Honestly," Hermione huffed. "He's not _really_ a Slytherin, he's _Harry Potter_."

The guy didn't seem terribly impressed by this; Harry was far less impressed. " _What_?" he squawked indignantly. "Am so a Slytherin! Sorting Hat said so!"

The burly Gryffindor gave him a serious stare, one that made Harry wish to turn to Hermione and say, "Tell my mother I love her," before charging into battle.

But, of course, in his case, that would really only work if he then threw _Hermione_ at the older boy. Which, uh, would end badly. Damn Dark Lords, killing people and ruining perfectly dramatic statements.

(...Harry had a sudden vision of him, facing down Voldemort – which could actually happen, he'd heard rumors that Voldemort hadn't actually been defeated, and that was _such_ a wizarding move, not to check and see if magical Hitler was dead or not. He'd be standing over the Dark Lord – who appeared in his mind as a skeleton with a Hitler mustache in a hooded black robe, holding a scythe, because the wizarding world apparently had a phobia of photographs – and he would yell out, "This!" Blast from the wand. "Is for my father! This!" Another blast. "Is for my mother! This!" Blast. "Is for my forehead! And THIS!" Massive blast. "Is for ruining the opportunity to use perfectly good dramatic lines at inappropriate times!"

Sometimes, he wondered about himself.)

A thought seemed to occur to the male Gryffindor – Harry just barely managed to keep himself for asking if it hurt. _Survival skills, where do you hide when I need you?_ he wondered idly. "How'd you like to earn some sickles?"

"Like Death?" And yes, he _did_ say that out loud. Damn it, mouth, look at the fine mess you've gotten us into this time! "I mean, uh, how so?"

Hermione shot him a highly suspicious look, but the guy didn't seem to notice anything. "You know when the Slytherin Quidditch team practices?" He awaited Harry's nod, so Harry nodded. He didn't, actually, but it couldn't be _that_ hard to figure out. "Right, then, if you could maybe watch them and just let me know where they seem weak..."

There was a horrified gasp. "You want him to _spy_ for you?" Hermione demanded. "That's-that's-"

"Admirably Slytherin of you, but Harry's gonna have to say _no_." This was yet another new voice, a Slytherin who easily out-bulked the Gryffindor boy and _dear god the teeth the teeth whyyyy_.

"Dentist!" Harry squawked out, pointing in horror at the _teeth_. "Dentistry may be a false science, but anything is better than _that_!"

"Dentistry is not a false science!" Hermione yelled back at him, hands suddenly on hips.

"God save me from fuzzy-headed activists, but it _is_!" Harry argued back. "The one year I brushed after every meal, flossed, used mouthwash, the whole deal, I got two cavities! The only two cavities in my life! My cousin didn't brush the whole year, brushed right before we went, and he got _praised_ for taking such good care of his teeth! LIES!"

It was honestly a toss-up as to whether it was Harry's rant or the escalating violence behind the two first years, but whatever the reason, the four of them wound up kicked out of the library rather quickly. Having been seen near each other by an authority figure, the older boys reluctantly went their separate ways rather than killing each other. Hermione was too busy wailing over having been _kicked out of a library, the horror_! to continue their argument, so Harry just threw his arms in the air. "I just wanted to sulk! Is that too much to ask?" he demanded of the heavens.

The heavens creaked ominously, and Harry decided it was time to get the heck outta dodge. Sure, the castle had been standing for a thousand years, but didn't that make it more likely that it would fall down now?


	6. If you can't beat 'em, throw things at them and laugh loudly.

Halloween. The word alone brought up many memories – mostly along the lines of setting up traps throughout the neighborhood to terrify small children, but what could be a better memory than that?

Plus, when he was eight he caught Dudley and Piers in a pit and sold rotten fruit to neighborhood children to throw at them. Harry would forever treasure that memory.

He decided that, in the spirit of Halloween (that is, make as much chaos as humanly possible with making the universe explode from sheer _awesome_ ), he should dress as the most scariest (look, grammar was for Ravenclaws, okay? And Granger, who was basically an activist Ravenclaw) thing he could think of. So he dug through his roommates' hair products (which were far, _far_ too numerous for anyone's good, seriously, he could easily poison a third-world country – which he considered his reserve plan of evil supervillainy) until he found what he was looking for. He then overused it to the point where he would probably be leaving a trail of grease wherever he went (so, about half as much as Draco used. Oh, _burn_!). This accomplished, Harry then spent a good twenty minutes practicing his scowl. After the first five minutes, whatever made the mirror talk decided to give up and visit other voices, or however magic mirrors worked. Which made him a little sad, because it ruined his daily habit of asking, "Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the me-est of them all?" But anyway!

"Try and ignore _this_!" he muttered at his reflection triumphantly, having mastered The Scowl.

"What?" yawned a voice from behind. Harry quickly whirled around, shoving his hands behind his back (there was nothing in them, but it was kinda habit).

"Nothing!"

Theodore Nott snorted inelegantly (not that there was, you know, a way to snort _elegantly_ or anything). "If Snape kills you I'm taking your bed," he said matter-of-factly, brushing by Harry on his way to the shower.

"Nott just spoke to me," was the first thing he dazedly said to Millicent (not Millie, _never_ Millie, dear god the horrors that would be visited upon you if you _dared_ to say Millie) when they met up in the common room.

"And yet, the world did not implode," Millicent said dryly, scratching her cat's ears. (Harry still didn't know the cat's name, but had long since decided that 'hellbeast' was appropriate enough. It answered to it, so apparently it was.)

"It should've," was Harry's sulky reply.

"Poor baby, the world doesn't warp itself around your twisted little ideals, whatever will you do," Millicent said in a bored monotone.

"Find a more sympathetic best friend?" Harry suggested.

"And who would put up with you?"

Harry ran through a quick mental list of all their yearmates. The Ravenclaws disliked him thanks to his grudge war with the ever-twitchy Terry Boot who was certain Harry was out to kill him via evil potted-plant hijinks (Ravenclaws were so cute sometimes, he wanted to pinch their little cheeks!); the Hufflepuffs were both scared and disturbingly paranoid (although that was mostly Macmillan's fault, Harry admitted to himself); Gryffindors were just a bad idea all around – one house or the other would crucify them for fraternizing with the enemy. So…

"Zabini," Harry said triumphantly.

"Zabini's too smart to be your friend," Millicent pointed out.

"Sarah Bones?" he tried.

"Her name's Susan," Millicent countered, like that was a good argument (and, okay, it was). He would've tried Daphne Greengrass, except she was becoming exceedingly strange – just the other day she'd sidled up to him and said, "How about you and me go back to the common room and practice our 'swish-and-flick'?" and had capped it off with an eyebrow waggle.

Harry had declined, since he'd already mastered Wingardium Leviosa, and then asked if she could teach him how to wriggle his eyebrows like that. She had huffed and stalked away.

"Alright, fine," Harry muttered. "You're still my best friend." He brightened suddenly. "Until next year, at least!"

Millicent patted him on the head rather condescendingly. But at least this time she didn't throw her cat on him.

Harry chalked it up to a win.

* * *

Somehow, Harry made it through most of the day without comments on his outfit – though he saw McGonagall trying not to break into hysterics, which was good enough for him. Of course, all good things must come to an end, Harry thought cheerfully as he caught sight of Snape billowing along the corridor ahead.

"Potter!" Snape could only possibly look angrier if there was cartoon smoke billowing out of his ears. (It was best not to ask how Harry, who had been kept away from television his entire life, knew what angry cartoon people looked like. It was best not to ask because he would then babble on for a few hours about half-remembered things he had read in books about the 'collective subconscious', when the answer was in fact that he was _really damn sneaky_ and had arranged mirrors and a hole in his cupboard door to be able to watch telly from a reclined position. He hadn't been able to _hear_ it, but his imagined storylines were way more awesome anyway.)

"Professor!" he responded, snapping his heels together and saluting.

For a second, Harry was pretty sure Snape's head would explode from rage. Man, if he managed to do to Snape in two months what he hadn't managed to do to his uncle in ten years… Harry would have to rethink his strategy with the Dursleys. He could easily get Vernon out of the way within a week if he acted like himself. Or push his uncle over the line to manslaughter. Okay, he'd have to think about this a bit harder.

"Detention," Snape managed to growl, separating the word by syllables into three separate words. _De-ten-tion_. It was a truly impressive pronunciation, one that would be studied in universities for years to come.

"For what, sir?" Harry asked, giving his best innocent and hurt look. Unfortunately, that face hadn't had a lot of practice.

"Disrespecting a professor and being a general nuisance to humanity." Snape had managed to gain control of his temper, and switch to a disdainful sneer, which saddened Harry a bit because it ruined his brain's attempt to create a Scale of Rage that he could measure things upon. Aw.

He was then hit with a blast of water for his pouting (he assumed), leaving melty hair gel dripping down his face. Ewww. That was just gross. "Follow," Snape snapped (heheheh, alliteration was fun!), turning sharply on his heel and stalking off.

Harry did indeed follow, mostly so he could take notes on how to do the sharp billowyness the correct way, although the toxic chemicals most likely soaking into his skin would probably kill him before he ever got to attempt to recreate it.

For once, Snape seemed to be completely _done_ with supervising Harry's detention, and just tossed him into the Trophy Room with a strict command to clean the entire place, top to bottom.

Harry entered the room, inwardly thinking that they had already been over how this kind of punishment _didn't_ work on him. The door slammed shut, and a quick test of the doorknob informed him that no, there would be no escape. Abandon all hope, ye who et cetera et cetera.

"Well, well, well, who's this ickle firstie?" A grinning freckled face topped with red hair popped out of freakin' nowhere, holding a duster.

An identical face popped up next to it. "Aw, it's Harry Potter, the Slytherin firstie!"

Harry stared at the demented faces blankly for a second, before it clicked why they were familiar. His mortal enemies! (Er, other than magical Hitler, of course.) How he'd managed to forget about them, when he was reminded by catching sight of their twenty-three siblings running around the school, he did not know. Other than the fact that two months is in fact four lifetimes for an eleven year old, and how was he supposed to remember stuff from previous lifetimes? Exactly!

"I refuse to talk to you," he said, putting his nose firmly in the air the way he'd seen Draco do on many previous occasions, and heading over to start cleaning. After all, he had a banquet to celebrate his parents' deaths to get to!

...that was possibly a bit morbid, even for him.

"We're hurt!" "Look at us, just crying over here!"

Harry wondered if it was considered gauche to try and crush your enemies with a giant gaudy trophy. Probably.

* * *

Some people would say that Harry's hatred of the Weasley twins was, say, unfounded, or a tad bit premature. Those people could shut their goddamn mouths now, because he had just spent two hours trapped with Moe and Larry (so named because, damn it, those were the only two Stooges he could remember the names of, okay?) and was ready to go on whatever the wizarding version of a school shooting spree was.

Instead, Harry practiced the breathing exercises that the therapist-he-had-never-seen would have probably taught him. And took off running the second the doorhandle actually _turned_ when he went test it out (approximately every thirty seconds).

Somehow – personally he blamed Mother Nature and Father Time, those canoodling harlots – there was still an hour and a half before dinner. Harry, ignoring the tiny bits of his genetic code urging him towards responsibility and actually completing his homework at some point sooner than 'half an hour before it is due', headed off with much purpose to rendezvous with Dave, who had said he'd be spending the afternoon on the west lawn harassing the wildlife. After a quick run to the dorm bathroom to re-do his Snape costume, of course.

Little over an hour later, and Harry had gotten tired of chasing mice with his snake buddy, so it was probably a good thing that dinner time had hit. " _Hey Dave, wanna go to the Halloween banquet? They probably got batsss and ssstuff, sssince wizards are weird like that_."

Dave looked highly interested in the idea of flying mice. " _It'sss on like Donkey Kong!_ " he cheered, slithering up Harry's leg and torso to settle around his neck. " _Forward, minion!_ "

Harry gave a sarcastic salute and headed off.

Indeed, the Great Hall was decked out in the most god-awful gaudy celebration of Satan he had ever seen in his (rather short) lifetime. Harry entertained the very satisfying idea of dropping the entire Dursley family head-first into the place and locking the doors. Aah, the screams of the damned, better than Top of the Pops really.

Well, he assumed. He'd never listened to Top of the Pops. Which... back to the Dursleys' screams and whimpers. Aaah.

" _...your cackling isss very disssturbing_ ," Dave commented after a moment, snapping Harry out of his beautiful, beautiful dream.

" _Ssso'sss your face_ ," he responded absently before weaving his way over to the Slytherin table. His house was seemingly conflicted about how to react – half were cheerfully going crazy over the mounds of delicious Halloween-themed food; the other half were looking distinctly sulky, probably for the same reasons that the portion of the Ravenclaw table that he'd passed whining about the over-commercialization of wizarding holidays was upset.

Huh. Some things _were_ universal.

Harry took his customary place between Millicent and Nott, across from Malfoy who was flanked by his lackeys. Except today Parkinson took Nott's usual spot, which was both annoying and a bit of a relief, since Harry was still unsure of what to do about Nott's, like, actual _speaking_. God it had been creepy. Harry almost wished he had a teddy bear to hug in remembrance.

...his observational skills were going into rapid decline, he decided, since it took him a good five minutes to figure out that the entire first year cohort of Slytherins was staring at him. Part of this was because they were doing a very well-bred staring – corner of the eyes, occasional glances, but their focus was definitely on him.

Parkinson decided to speak up, finally. "Ah, Harry? Why are you... impersonating Professor Snape?"

"For Halloween," he said, the ' _duh_ ' highly implied. But not quite highly enough, so he added: " _Duh_."

"...what does it have to do with Halloween?" Zabini asked after the others shared confused looks for a few long moments.

Oh fer- were they serious? "Little wizards and witches don't do trick-or-treating?" They looked blank. "Guising?" he tried, even though he didn't think any of them were Irish or Scottish. Still blank. Harry sighed. "You wizards and your outright worship of Satan without giving children candy sicken me."

They stared for another moment, and then shifted their attention to Millicent, Harry's unofficial translator. She sighed, looking highly put-upon (and also a bit like a bull right before a red cape was waved in front of it; Harry was vaguely concerned). "Muggle children dress up in costume on Halloween and go door-to-door asking for treats – these days generally candy." The others made 'ooooh' faces.

Harry, meanwhile, sulked. At least until a bat got fairly close and Dave decided to strike – he missed, but seemed to get into the spirit of things and started racing up and down the table in search of other low-flying winged rats, causing much screeching and cursing among the girls and boys of Slytherin. Harry watched, and possibly cheered him on around a mouthful of caramel apple.

Dave had sulkily returned after having a few large and heavy objects thrown at him, and the table (and by extension, the rest of the hall) had finally settled down when the doors suddenly banged open.

Professor McStutter (Harry forgot what his real name was) yelped, "TROLL! IN THE DUNGEON!" and promptly fell over. Hopefully dead, but the rest of the school was screaming and freaking out too loudly for him to go check. They never let him have his corpses – uh, that is, fun. Yes. They never let him have fun. Move along, nothing to see here.

Parkinson had _that_ look again. "I wonder what breed of troll it is. Most of the British trolls don't come this far south, they prefer the very north. The Hebrides are _littered_ with them, Father says."

Harry had always been a smart cookie, and knew where this was heading. "We're not checking it out. We're _not_ ," he said, in a rare show of intelligence.

The others gave him wary looks, fairly certain this was a trick of his, but for once Harry wanted to do the sensible thing: _not go out and get his damn self killed_.

And, of course, he was overruled. Malfoy refused to go (meaning Crabbe and Goyle were out as well), and Greengrass made a weird comment to Harry ("You know Platform 9 and 3/4? Well I know something else with the same exact measurements."), gave another eyebrow waggle, and also refused. Zabini looked morbidly interested and agreed to come along "if only to cart away the corpses", and Nott gave his usual blank-eyed stare that Parkinson (with the practice of having known him since infanthood) interpreted as agreement, and Millicent agreed to come along to try and keep them all alive, because god knew the group didn't otherwise have the common sense god gave a grapefruit.

Harry apparently had been volunteered without his agreement. Oh, whatever.

* * *

So they managed to find it surprisingly easily. And nowhere near the dungeons. McStutter was pretty much a moron, Harry decided – but then again, he'd figured that out about five minutes into the first class.

"HOLY CRAP, WHO LET ROSEANNE OUT?"

Three guesses as to who yelled _that_ when they found the troll shoving itself into the girl's bathroom. And none of the three guesses count.

The troll grunted and attempted to remove itself from the doorway. With a loud creaking and cracking, it got out, and whirled around to face the Slytherins. Well, 'whirled' was a misleading term for something that moved approximately five feet per hour, but it did the troll version of whirling very well.

"Quick!" Harry decided, "Cook up as many turkeys as possible before she goes for the nearest flesh!"

For some reason, this suggestion made some sort of sense to them – or, more likely, they were all in a state of shock and panic too great to turn on their automatic Harry filters – and Parkinson quickly snapped her fingers and shrieked, "RIZZO!"

A disgustingly malformed little creature popped up. "Yes Mistress Pansy?" it attempted to squeak, but halfway through Pansy cut it off.

"Five turkeys, now!"

It nodded, and popped out for a second before reappearing with five live turkeys, which Parkinson promptly ordered him to throw at the troll. (Well, Harry suggested it, and Parkinson repeated it slightly woodenly.)

The troll looked confused, and then suddenly hungry. Harry was reminded unpleasantly of Dudley, and sure enough, the giant gross creature fell upon the gobbling feathered creatures much as Dudley fell upon chocolate cake. And he meant 'fell upon' in the 'ate ferociously' way, not 'fell upon' as in that time he tripped Dudley who had landed face-first in the chocolate cake.

Little known fact: trolls have an extreme weakness to tryptophan.

More well known fact: turkeys have a lot of tryptophan.

The group of eleven year olds stood over the snoring troll, distinctly nonplussed. "Oh, it's a Manx coral troll," Parkinson said after a minute of inspection. She offered no explanation for why on earth it would be called that, but that was okay, Harry was becoming used to the wizarding world not making sense.

"YOU SAVED ME!" a voice shrieked out of the bathroom, and a cloud of hair flew out to hug Harry. Tightly. Around the neck. Ack.

His "friends" (oh the horror) seemed more amused than worried for him as he flailed helplessly (although he also thought he caught a muttered, "Ew, Muggle germs," from Zabini as he stepped back). She finally let go, and Harry backpedaled to hide behind Millicent in slight terror. "Parkinson! She saved you! Not me!" he managed to insist.

Parkinson rolled her eyes. "For Merlin's sake, Harry, we've shared ninety percent of our waking hours for the past two months. You have permission to use my first name at this point." Granger, for her part, looked distinctly unsure about thanking Parkinson – oh, fine, _Pansy_ – the way she had Harry. Wise move on her part, because Harry was pretty sure Pansy was a biter.

The teachers – day late and a pound short, as per usual – rounded the corner at a run. "We heard screaming!" puffed McStutter, who for some reason was on the fearsome strike force.

"It was her," Harry immediately said, pointing an accusing finger at Granger. She just kind of stared at him.

For that matter, so did the professors, although they quickly changed direction of staring to the snoring troll. And then back up to Harry.

He shrugged. "It's probably best not to ask."


	7. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush... unless you're a flesh-eating bush.

If one more – just _one_ more – person said the word 'Quidditch' in Harry's immediate vicinity, he was ninety-nine point seven-five-eight percent sure he was legally allowed to poison them. The remaining point-two-four-two wasn't sure because, knowing what he did of the wizarding world so far, he'd probably forget to use the traditional phrase that made it legal and he'd spend the rest of his days shaving ducks. Or whatever they did to criminals in the magical world, Satan only knew.

(Harry had started using 'Satan' instead of 'God' after the discovery of the gates of hell on the third floor. Yes, he was well aware he was mixing Christian and Greco-Roman mythologies. No, he didn't particularly care. Are you shocked and amazed by this?)

Even the surly Slytherins who liked to lurk in corners talking about dark plots to rule the world had given it up for the time being, and were bouncing around squealing like little girls at a New Kids on the Block concert. Harry considered informing them of his ace comparison, but reflected that being cursed to eat his own shoes was not, in fact, something he was eager to experience for the fifth time since the start of the school year. He'd like to give it until at least, say, February.

He wound up hanging out with Hufflepuffs for the most part – neither they nor the Ravenclaws were quite as excited, as their own first match had been largely ignored by the other two houses (and, to be honest, most of their own houses as well), and Harry had an ongoing feud with the Boot boy in Ravenclaw, so he couldn't hang out with _them_. It just wasn't done. There were only six Hufflepuffs in first year this time around; Justin Longlastname seemed politely confused by the goings-on, Macmillan was self-importantly informing everyone of the history of the Gryffindor-Slytherin Quidditch rivalry (no one cared), the two Welshies had disappeared (Harry suspected they were in league with Nott, trying to win the Creepers of the Year '91 trophy), the redheaded girl professed to enjoying the game but not the lead-up, and the other girl was, apparently, terrified of heights.

All in all, they were _extremely_ boring, and Harry honestly considered painting Dave a terrifying color and setting him loose. Dave, being somewhat more sensible ( _somewhat_ ), refused to be part of something that would get him killed that stupidly.

Harry had, at one point while sitting with the Hufflepuffs (the first few days, they had been terrified, but they had eventually realized the scariest part of Harry happened to be his mouth, and the more they talked, the less he would be able to), mentioned that he knew jack-all about Quidditch. Macmillan and Wife had decided that this simply wouldn't do, and had been educating him on the topic of really stupid magical sports that were possibly Darwinian theory in action.

"...of course, originally the Golden Snitch was a small, round bird known as the Snidget, but they were essentially hunted to extinction, leading to the introduction of the ball-" Damn, Harry was glad that he tuned back in time to hear _that_. Because with that, Harry Had An Idea (the capitalization were necessary in order to warn the psychic populace to get the hell out of dodge. Wherever dodge might be). A uni student with a semester's worth of psychology classes would have come up with some pretentious-sounding theory about how Harry's lack of a loving home environment had led to attention-seeking, and Quidditch was taking away all the attention he had earned over the last few months, causing him to act out. Harry always thought that uni students could do with a few more swirlies in childhood (or now, assuming they would hold still long enough).

There was one main problem to Harry's insta-idea: how to keep the birds in the area. He had dug up thousands of animal-handling related spells in the library in his attempt to re-do the wizarding world's idea of cataloging (i.e., there wasn't one), but there wasn't nearly enough time for him to learn them before the game (and, to be honest, he wasn't super-advanced at Charms to begin with). There had barely been enough time for him to learn the color charm he'd be using (under the assumption that spray-painting wildlife was as frowned upon at Hogwarts as it had been in Surrey). That left one thing: tempt the birds to stay in the area, either by outside threat, or by inside treat.

It was the same principle he'd used many times on Dudley.

He stood abruptly from the Hufflepuff table and left without another word. (The Hufflepuffs looked, as one, extremely relieved.) "Birds are scared of owls, right?" he asked Pansy, dropping down at the Slytherin table with no further ado.

"Most-" Pansy started, only to be cut off by Millicent, who slammed a hand down on the table.

" _No_ ," was all she said.

"But they-" Pansy tried again, affronted by apparently erroneous information.

"Not _no_ , they don't, _no_ , Harry doesn't need to know if they do or not, because there's nothing good he'll do with the information," Millicent pointed out. Pansy still looked disgruntled, but nodded.

Harry, on the other side of the table, pouted. "Thanks Millicent, now I have to go to plan B," he whined.

"What's plan B?"

"I don't know! That's why I'm upset I have to resort to it!"

* * *

Plan B turned out to be far worse than Plan A had been, and Harry vindictively decided that it served Millicent right. (Of course, Plan Alpha had been by far the easiest, but it had turned out to be horribly cost-prohibitive, so he'd moved on from the Greek alphabet. Damn Greeks and their baklava.)

Ever since the fun of Halloween night ('fun', in this case, actually meaning 'nearly dying at the hands of an oversized American telly star', a definition not used nearly widely enough), his housemates (in this case, Pansy) had assumed that the Great Troll Expedition Force should, like, totally be BFFs, so it was harder to completely disappear for as long as he needed to. After all, visiting the Hufflepuffs had still been in full view, and seen by his housemates (Pansy) as just another amusing little quirk of his. Disappearing was something else entirely, but sadly necessary for Plan B For Bad-ass.

So Harry did what Harry did best – he set up an explosion, and got the hell out of there while everyone was busying circling like vultures (it was Slytherin, after all, concern was horrendously passé).

Of course, given the sparse collection of ingredients in the first year's potions kit and the number of locks and curses guarding the trunks of the older Slytherins (paranoia, honestly!), the explosion couldn't actually _do_ much – sadly, Harry lacked the pure destructive skills that were apparently handed out after sorting into Gryffindor (see: Neville Longbottom, potions; Seamus Finnegan, charms; Ron Weasley, anything after he got annoyed). But it looked very impressive and pretty, multicolored sparks and ominous billowing smoke.

Harry slipped out the entrance, which for Slytherin was a brick wall, because they were just _inviting_ people to mock them at this point, and started stealthily down the dungeon corridor ( _not_ hallway – one of the Prefects had been very clear that above-ground, passages were hallways, and below-ground, they were corridors; Harry had been very clear that the Prefect hadn't been getting enough sunlight and his brain was beginning to rot from lack of vitamin D).

A heavy hand clamped down on his shoulder suddenly, causing him to jump and squeak like a terrified rabbit. "Is whatever you're about to do," a voice asked calmly, "Going to kill someone or send them to the loony bin?"

Harry had relaxed as soon as he heard the voice. "It _shouldn't_..." he said hesitantly, turning around to face his attacker. "But you know these whackadoo wizards and such."

Millicent gave him a steady, almost bored look. "Yes, I do know you." Not giving him time to squawk at the insult, she continued, "If you get caught – and you will be – I refuse to give you an alibi."

"Some friend you are! Insulting me and then hindering my criminal genius," Harry muttered grumpily, re-considering the list of other first years. The Hufflepuff Welshies, he supposed, were always an option. If he could understand them through their weird Welsh words and their insistence that w-is-a-vowel.

"Yes, I refuse to help you commit felonies. I am a horrible person," Millicent deadpanned. "Try and be back by five, we have Potions homework to study." With that, she went back into the common room, which was still billowing smoke because Slytherins thought putting out fires was a servant's task.

Harry pulled a face at her back that he'd pulled at his aunt's back the few times she had seemed to catch on to what he was doing, and given him extra work. Because, honestly, doing this without an alibi _was_ extra work.

* * *

His first stop, having escaped the castle, was to hit up Hagrid's hut (after making sure the giant weirdo was elsewhere). Sure enough, the man had a serious supply of cages of every shape and size, and Harry transported them a few at a time to an isolated alcove near the Forbidden Forest.

"Step one, complete!"

" _Isss ssstep two the boogaloo?_ " hissed a voice near his head. Harry knew who it was, of course (snakes tended to be the only things that hissed and he could understand in English, and there was only one snake he had ever met who made weird-ass pop culture references), but his head whipped around automatically anyway. Stupid heads, with their independent thoughts.

Dave had been sunbathing atop the giant boulder that made up part of the alcove, and had slithered forward to drop his head down and see what Harry was doing.

Harry, at this moment, was sticking out his tongue.

"Nooo, Dave, step two is bait the owls. Wanna help?" Dave gave a pretty good effort into biting him, but Harry just whacked him absent-mindedly on the nose. "You animals can all talk, right?"

Dave tilted his head, a curiously canine motion for a snake to make. " _Sssort of_ ," he finally said. " _Sssome ssspeciesss more than othersss_."

Harry had figured as much. "The owls, the ones in the owlery, think they'd be smart enough to go along with a plan if there's a reward at the end?"

" _Asss you jussst implied, me and the owlsss don't get along ssso good_ ," Dave snarked at him. " _Alssso, delayed gratification isss not a concept common to the animal kingdom_."

"So trickery it is, then!" Harry said, not deterred in the least.

He may have called step two 'bait', but step one-point-five was 'raid the greenhouses and labs for said bait'. The seventh years, he knew from his selective enhanced listening (better known as eavesdropping) were using lab rats to test potion variations on, and the greenhouses usually had seeds that would attract non-predator birds.

And hopefully not poison them. Harry probably should've looked that up first.

It was a long, boring day of tricking owls and various flying creatures from the forest into cages. Dave was actually somewhat helpful when it came to smaller birds, flushing them out of hiding with his mad snake skillz, as he claimed.

Still, it took up to dinner to get everything situated, and Harry cursed the fact that all he knew how to do magically, so far, was levitate small objects and change matches into needles and vice-versa. The levitating was a little helpful, but the second one? Stupid basics.

And then he was forced into Potions study after dinner, because Malfoy had this obsession with not letting down their head of house (Harry was of the opinion the only way _Malfoy_ could let Snape down was to paint himself red and gold and proclaim his everlasting love for the Weasley twins, but everyone turned green with nausea at the mental image last time he had brought it up).

But his sleep that night, never had there been a sweeter sleep. It was the deep, peaceful sleep of someone who knew they were going to cause absolute chaos in the morning.

* * *

If anything, breakfast the next morning was even more batshit-crazy obsessed with Quidditch – all the tables were chattering on about it, so there wasn't even freedom at the Hufflepuff table. Harry glared moodily across his porridge, promising his everlasting enmity to the house of the badger for not providing a Quidditch-free safe-haven.

"We need to skip the game."

The Slytherin first year section of the world went silent instantly as everyone's mouths and spoons froze in midair.

"Pansy, what are you talking about?" Malfoy asked after a long moment, giving her a shade of the look he usually reserved for Harry.

For it had indeed been Pansy, not Harry, with that shocking statement of disloyalty to the insanity of the magical world. Her hair was less than perfect, indicating her state of increased agitation, and her face showed a mixture of regret and excitement. At Malfoy's question, she slid a book to the center of the table.

"I found information on the three-headed dog," she stated, flipping to a pre-marked page and pointing. Harry was lost for a moment, but then remembered – they were supposed to be investigating Cereberus and Flamel, for reasons he didn't fully understand. Pansy, apparently, had kept up with the quest, although from the looks on everyone else's faces (except Zabini, whose face was as composed as ever), everyone else had forgotten. "They fall asleep when music is played. While everyone is at the game, we can go to the third floor corridor-" _Hah_ , Harry thought _, take that, Prefect who makes the hallway/corridor distinction!_ "-and make it fall asleep, and see what's under the trapdoor."

" _I'm_ going to the game," Harry declared, crossing his arms stubbornly.

Everyone save Millicent turned to stare at him. Millicent sighed. "They would notice if the group of us was missing from this exciting event. Also, Harry has something planned."

The stares turned accusing, and Harry pouted and crossed his arms tighter. "Traitor. I trusted you, and you betrayed me!" he cried dramatically.

Malfoy looked undecided for a moment, and then came to a conclusion. "I want to see what Potter's going to pull. Sorry, Pansy."

Pansy shrugged. "Millicent has a point about our absence being noted. We can always go tonight."

"Yay," Harry said dryly. "Entering the gates of hell. Just what I wanted to do instead of sleep."

* * *

Harry left breakfast early, the others letting him go while feigning ignorance – general consensus was that he was going to be caught, and they did not feel like sharing his punishment. It didn't take much to get everything in position, so he spent the rest of the time in his hiding area under the stands (seriously, sooo many hiding places under there, although Harry had found some suspicious stains that made him cry, "Ew! Cooties!" and find a different area) practicing the multifocal version of Wingardium Leviosa he was going to use for half of the final presentation. It was a pain in the ass, but only in the trying to keep everything in mind at once. It wasn't more technically complicated than the normal version they had learned in class.

Finally, the stomping of feet above his head calmed down, and the dull roar of the crowds quieted down before one particular voice boomed out across the stadium.

 _Showtime_ , Harry thought with an evil, evil smirk.

He gave it another minute to make sure everyone was in the air and not paying attention to the base of the Ravenclaw stands (he'd chosen Ravenclaw mostly to get back at Boot), and then pulled away the paneling. "Ready, friends?" he asked of the multitude of caged birds.

They mostly just glared at him.

"Okay then," he said, moving to the back of the area of the stands he was in. "Let's go! _Wingardium Leviosa!_ "

The latches on all of the cages lifted open (he'd loosened them beforehand, but made sure the birds hadn't realized), and the cage doors swung open. Having been kept in too-small cages for too long a period of time (not necessarily on purpose; Harry wasn't sure how much area a bird needed, and decided it was the same as a cat in a cat carrier, which is _not_ the correct answer), the birds flew out almost immediately. To egg them on, Harry and Dave made sure to scare the crap out of them.

He'd littered the stands and field with seeds the night before, and mice that morning before anyone had arrived, so the hungry birds paused in the sunlight... and went to town.

The shrieks and screams were music to Harry's ears, even when he heard the howl of "POTTER!" from the stands from the one professor who (rightfully) suspected him of everything.


End file.
